


A Touch of the Wild

by Soledad



Category: 21 Jump Street (TV), Adam-12, Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, CHiPs, Criminal Minds, Original Work, Poltergeist: The Legacy, Quincy ME, Spenser: For Hire, Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre: "Pathways" eating all fandoms, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Guest characters from various shows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-20
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 02:37:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 53,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4373963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soledad/pseuds/Soledad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The BAU team is called to Los Angeles to help with a series of particularly brutal murders. When it turns out that Dr. Reid matches the prey scheme of the unsub with disturbing accuracy, one of the local detectives has to take drastic measures to save his life. So he comes away, relatively unhurt – but does he also come away unchanged?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 01

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Disclaimer:** I don't own Criminal Minds or the White Wolfe characters and settings or any of the other shows from which I've borrowed characters for cameo appearances. All I own are a few OCs and a really twisted plot idea.
> 
>  **Rating:** Generally Adults, rated for violence, so no underage readers, please.  
>  **Genre:** Criminal Minds, crossed over with my Pathways universe. To borrow a matching expression from James Walkswithwind, Pathways is the AU that eats all fandoms.
> 
>  **Timeline:** Early Season 3 in Criminal Minds. Set after “Scared to Death”, but before David Rossi joins the BAU team.

**PART 01**

Detective Joaquin Murietta reached the front door of the _West Los Angeles Community Police Station_ exactly ten minutes before the beginning of the night shift, like on every other working day. This rather unremarkable brick building had been his workplace for the last seventeen years, and he still looked essentially the same as he had on the day he’d first set foot into the office of Lieutenant Bronowski: a moderately well-clad Latino man in his mid-thirties, with sharp features, short-cropped black hair, a neatly-trimmed goatee and wide, observant dark eyes.

People sometimes teased him about the fact that he apparently wasn’t aging a day; to which he usually replied that his grandfather hadn’t shown any sign of aging well into his late sixties, and that he must have come after the old man. “It’s all in the genes,” he used to say.

Which was, basically, true. At least the part about his grandfather, who’d lived to a ripe old age of ninety-seven and barely looked a day older than seventy when he’d died. The other part wasn’t something Murietta would discuss with anyone but a few chosen allies.

He locked his car, a black Sedan with tinted glasses, and entered the building. The officer on duty behind the desk – infallibly Sergeant Miguel Sanchez on night shift, a short, wiry, balding man in his early fifties, and of Mexican origins like himself – nodded in his direction, looking exceptionally grim. Which was to say a lot, as Sergeant Sanchez always looked grim. The bone structure of his face, combined with the hollow cheeks, made him look like a skull on the best of days, albeit an aesthetically pleasing one, from a purely artistic point of view.

For Sanchez to look so much grimmer than usual, something really bad must have happened. As a rule, he was pretty unshakable, which wasn’t surprising if one knew his personal history. Murietta got a sinking feeling in his stomach, guessing already what must have caused the man who’d been to hell and back several times to react so strongly.  
  
“There’s a new case, isn’t there?” he asked.  
  
Sanchez nodded. “The call came in less than an hour ago.”

“How bad is it?”

“Bad.”

“Like the others?”

“Worse, actually. It seems getting worse with every new case.”

“Is Moralez in already?” Murietta asked.

“She’s in the bullpen with an informant,” Sanchez replied.

“What? Do we have a witness this time?” Murietta began to feel somewhat better, but Sanchez was quick to dampen his excitement.

“No, I think it’s just the usual background work.”

“Who’s the informant?

“Anne something; the girl who runs that homeless shelter where two of the previous victims sometimes stayed.”

Murietta frowned. “The East Hills Teen shelter over on Cranshow? Why has she come to us? They belong to a different precinct. The last thing we need in this sorry case is a fight about competence.”

“I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that,” Sanchez replied. “The captain has ordered that all affected stations should work together on solving the case,” Sanchez replied.

Again, Murietta felt his stomach tightening.

“That… that’s really bad,” he said, seriously worried now. “Working with Downtown Central Community Station could mean…”

“…working with Lochley, I know,” Sanchez finished grimly. “Considering her history, it’s certainly a risk, but… well, there’s nothing we could do about it. Not right away.”

“She’d do everything in her powers to get on a case like this,” Murietta prophesied darkly. “And we must do everything in our power to keep her out of the case. I don’t want Kate Lochley sniffing here around. She has the unfortunate tendency of stumbling over things that aren’t good for her health… and getting rid of her would draw too much attention.”

“I’ll place the calls as soon as I can get a safe connection,” Sanchez promised.

Murietta nodded in understanding. The phone lines of the police station were monitored. The last thing they needed right now would have been getting caught talking to people they weren’t even supposed to know.

Their conversation was interrupted by the first regular patrol ready to go out into the night. Murietta had a fleeting familiarity with the Adam 12 unit, consisting of Gus Grant, a former football player and mild-mannered family man, and his partner, Matt Doyle, Sanchez’ personal… protégée.

“We’ll go now, Sergeant,” Grant said, a bit unnecessarily, but he was a man of proper protocol if there ever had been one. He liked to do things according to the rules.

“Be careful out there,” Sanchez repeated. This was his standard parting message to all units leaving for patrol, but even more so if this particular unit was concerned, as Doyle was like a son for him.

“Aren’t we always?” Doyle asked with false innocence.

Sanchez gave him a narrow-eyed look that used to make newbies shake in their boots during his time as a training officer at the Police Academy.

“Not to my knowledge, no,” he said in a clipped tone, and Murietta winced, remembering how they had found Doyle in a great puddle of his own blood just a few years earlier. It was a miracle that the young man could return to regular duty at all.

Grant elbowed his partner into the ribs, which took Doyle off-balance for a moment. “Don’t taunt the Sergeant, Doyle. Jess and I can’t afford any more pay cuts because of your antics.”

They laughed and left, partners and unlikely friends for quite a few years. Perhaps there was some truth in the saying of polar opposites attracting each other, after all.

“I’ll better be going, too,” Murietta said. “Moralez and I will need to compare our stories before the colleagues from all the other stations start coming in on the case.”

“That won’t be easy,” Sanchez warned him. “Especially if we can’t get Lochley off the case, after all. Whatever else she might be, she’s first and foremost a damn good cop.”

Murietta gave him a wolfish grin. “When did I ever go for easy solutions?”

“When did you get the chance?” Sanchez asked back. “Now, get going, or you’ll be late, and the lieutenant is not in the mood to tolerate lashness in these days.”

Glancing at the big clock above Sanchez’ desk, Murietta realized that the sergeant was right. He had only three minutes left, should he want to arrive punctually to the start of the night shift.

He waved Sanchez and jogged up to the fourth floor to Homicide (after all those years, he still could not make himself trust the elevators), taking two steps at once to shorten his way. The clock struck when he entered the bullpen and threw his keys and his briefcase onto the desk.

Two of his colleagues, detectives Turner and Barritza, were already assorting the details of the new case. They had both come from the Highway Patrol, having decided at about the same time that they wanted more from life than just coursing around in their police cars and writing up people who drove faster than speed limits would allow. As they had served together for years before going to detective school, they had been assigned to the same station in the hope that they’d keep up the good work – which they did.

“I heard we’ve got a new case?” Murietta said, after exchanging absent words of greeting with Nancy Wong, their president computer geek, who did most of the research and all of the filing.

Jed Turner, a six-feet-tall, trim African-American man well over forty, with glasses and a thick moustache, nodded and put on the most recent crime scene photos onto the whiteboard with the help of the usual small magnets.

“It seems the same handiwork to me,” he replied in that surprisingly mild voice of his that seemed to rumble deep within his broad chest. “Save from the fact that the killer is getting more brutal with each new case.”

“Yeah, Sanchez has told me,” Murietta gave the photos a thorough look and had to agree. The killings had been disturbingly brutal from the first case on, but as new and new ones were added to the pile – the current one was the fourteenth known case – they kept getting bloodier and more excessive. There was no doubt, in the opinion of the detectives of the West LA Community Station that they were dealing with a serial killer. With an insane one, most likely.

Fourteen victims, scattered across several precincts between Downtown and West-Hollywood. All murdered in what seemed in a rage, their throats torn out, and although they must have bled copiously, very little blood had actually been _found_ at the crime scenes.

The implications of that made Murietta’s shackles rise. The possible consequences filled him with dread.

The demographics were interesting, though. It seemed that the killer was less concerned about the social status of his victims. He – or she, although that was less likely – only killed young, white men between the age of twenty and thirty, and he also seemed to be attracted to the tall, lanky, brown-haired and somewhat anaemic type.

Half the victims had been homeless people, living on the street, near to well-known shelters. The other half had been successful young men; ones that had reached a certain level of fame either in business or in science or art at a fairly young age. Never the really big names, but relatively well-known ones anyway.

For some reason, these latter ones had been the more savagely maimed during the killing. As if they had been the primary targets, while the others only served to still the killer’s bloodlust between two “real” murders.

Again, the implications chilled Murietta to the bone.

“What do we know about the latest victim?” he asked his colleagues.

Barritza, a tall, lanky, brown-haired man himself, yet safely out of the killer’s prey scheme with his forty-something years, consulted his laptop.

“Seems to be one of those in-between types again,” he finally said. “Name’s Douglas Howser, age thirty-four…”

“Thirty-four?” Murietta interrupted. “That’s too old for our killer.”

“Not really,” Barritza replied. “He looked at least a decade younger – it seems that the killer doesn’t check the age of his victims too closely, as long as the visuals match. This Howser character started off as some kind of child prodigy; he attended medical school at the age of fifteen, but dropped out three years later. Apparently, he couldn’t bear the pressure and turned to drugs.”

“Is that why he’s in the system?” Murietta asked.

Barritza shook his head. “No, he was still underage at that time, so even if he had a file, it must have been sealed. But he worked as a paramedic for almost six years; clean all the time, before having suffered a setback. That’s why his fingerprints are stored.”

“He wasn’t a bad guy for a junkie,” Turner commented, peering over his partner’s shoulder. “He even helped sometimes with the sick and the injured in the shelters where he stayed overnight.”

“All good deeds get properly punished,” Wong added cynically, but none of the men felt like laughing. For a fragile little lady in her late sixties, she could have a pretty morbid sense of humour sometimes.

“Sounds awfully familiar,” Murietta said. “And yet I have the feeling that there must be something that we’ve overseen, all the time. There must be more in common in the victims than simply their looks. That would be over-simplifying things, and we can’t allow having any preconceptions. Every mistake we make can cause another death.”

“You may be right,” Barritza allowed. “I just can’t think of anything else that would connect the victims. They’ve apparently never met… unless on the street, of which we have no evidence. They had different jobs…”

“Those of them who _did_ have one, that is,” Turner added _sotto voce_.

“…different interests,” Barritza continued, ignoring his remark. “They lived in different parts of the city. While most of them were single, one was married and one betrothed. Two of them had illegitimate children, one paying his aliments regularly, the other not at all. It just doesn’t make any sense!”

“Oh, I’m sure that it does – from the killer’s point of view,” Murietta replied with a sigh. “We just haven’t found the right angle yet.”

“Yeah, and how many more will die yet before we do?” Turner asked bitterly. “I hate being so… so helpless, you know? We are supposed to protect people from such beasts, but we seem to be several steps behind, all the time.”

“As Hercule Poirot said once: it’s very hard to protect a city full of sane people from _one_ madman,” Murietta said. “Although, of course, the actual sanity rate of LA perhaps could be a matter of some discussion. In any case, we can’t do more than our best.”

“Which doesn’t seem nearly enough,” Turner retorted.

Murietta had to agree with him. Even if his personal suspicions – or fears – would prove true, they would have to stop the killings, by any means necessary. He was just afraid that if he _was_ right, for the first time in his life he might not have the means to do so.

“Well, at least we’re trying,” he said, answering more his own fears than Turner’s actual comment. “Where is Moralez, by the way? The sergeant said she was talking to an informant.”

“They’ve been in there for half an hour or so,” Barritza waved in the vague direction of the interrogation room. “The girl’s a tough one, wouldn’t give away more than absolutely necessary, but Moralez seems to handle her well enough.”

“She’s always been good at that sort of stuff,” Murietta took his jacket off and draped it over the back of his chair. “Besides, we’ve known this Anne for a couple of years by now. I’ll go over and see how far Moralez has come with her.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
He found his partner in relaxed discussion with Anne Steele, a somewhat anorexic-looking blonde in her late twenties – they were old acquaintances, after all. Anne had run the East Hill Teen Center – a shelter for homeless youths – for some six years by now, and she was known about to be ready to do just about everything to ensure the safety of her young wards. That included walking the grey zones of the law as well as cooperating with the police if it served her interests. They had solved quite a few cases thank the information provided by Anne, even though they knew that she’d only done so to protect her residents.

Murietta usually let Moralez deal with her. As much as he respected Anne for the work she was doing, she also made him a little uncomfortable. She saw things most people didn’t even realize to exist, and he _did_ have a lot to hide. Those ancient eyes in that pretty young face always had him shiver. Anne had been through a lot in her young life, and that had made her age prematurely in the inside, even though she looked younger than her actual age to the naked eye.

Although he was curious whether the girl could tell anything of interest, Murietta didn’t enter the interrogating room. The shared stance of the two women showed that they’d nearly reached the end of their conversation, so he opted to avoid Anne. He paged Moralez to make her aware of his presence, but otherwise remained on the other side of the mirror, simply listening to them.

It seemed that Anne had indeed known their latest victim quite well. Douglas Howser had spent the last year in the shelter, helping out with the sick and the injured, trying to get away from the drugs once again.

“Did he have any temporary jobs?” Moralez asked.

Anne shrugged, staring at the broken half-heart tattooed in the inside of her right forearm thoughtfully. It was an ugly piece of work, and Murietta wondered why she hadn’t tried to have it removed. Either that “Ricky” whose name was tattooed into the middle of the half-heart was someone who had once been very important to her, or it would have cost more money than she was willing to waste.

“Not very often, and never for very long,” she answered Moralez’ question. “Sometimes he helped out in that exotic dance club, the _Vesuvius_ , as a waiter. But he could never stay away from those damned drugs for long, so he could only work from time to time, when he happened to be clean… as long as it lasted anyway.”

“I’m surprised that they took him in the _Vesuvius_ , even if only as an ersatz waiter,” Moralez said. "It’s a club with fairly good reputation. They don’t usually employ junkies.”

“Howsie wasn’t your usual junkie,” Anne said with a hint of angry defence in her voice. “He could keep up appearances like nobody else. He was also a very fastidious person.”

“That’s fairly unusual for someone living on the streets,” Moralez commented.

Anne nodded. “Yeah, it is. I think he only stayed in the shelter to use the shower and the washing machine. He once told me that living on the street had actually been cool, but being filthy all the time was killing him.” She shook her head, almost amused, despite the tragic event that had brought her to the police. “He was a strange one.”

“How did the others from the shelter accept him?” Moralez asked.

Anne gave that almost-laugh again.

“They laughed about his washing tic, of course, but they liked him nevertheless,” he answered. “He was friendly and helpful, and he could work wonders with the simplest of medical remedies. They called him ‘the witch doctor of the streets’… but it was meant fondly.”

“Sounds almost like a fairly tale,” Moralez commented with a sarcastic undertone.

“It would have been,” Anne replied dryly, “had he not been abusing drugs all the time. He could have achieved so much if he could just get away from that damn E.”

“And despite the drugs, he still achieved more in a few years than many other people would during their entire life,” Moralez said thoughtfully. “It’s a real shame that he had to be picked out by a crazed killer.”

 _A shame perhaps, but not an accident_ , Murietta thought, his trained detective’s mind already making the connections. _Even as a homeless junkie, this young man had made extraordinary achievements. No, he wasn’t picked out randomly. I wonder if the other homeless victims had outstanding abilities, too._

In the interrogation room Moralez asked Anne a few more questions, and then released her. Before leaving, though, the blonde stared at the mirror for a moment. As if she could have felt Murietta’s presence somehow. It was an eerie thing, and Murietta backed off involuntarily, until the opposite wall blocked his retreat. He felt the illogical urge to flee or hide, more certain than ever that something was not entirely… _normal_ with the young woman – and it was more than just her troubled past.

Finally, Anne left, without saying anything else, and Morales came into the observation room to talk to her partner. She was a very attractive Latino woman in her early thirties, with a few African-American ancestors somewhere up her bloodline, and had worked with Murietta for the last seven years. They were the oldest team at Homicide, with the most solved cases, which was why this particularly nasty one had been dropped onto their laps. Five of the serial killer’s victims had been murdered in West Los Angeles. No other precinct had such a high victim rate.

“So, you’ve heard,” Moralez said, twisting her long, jet-black hair into a lose knot and fastened it with a hairpin on the back of her head. “ _Madre de Díos_ , will this… this massacre never end? Fourteen young men dead, and we still don’t know a thing about the murderer!”

“I believe I begin to see the pattern,” Murietta said slowly.

“Good for you,” she replied. “Care to enlighten me?”

“It was Anne’s description of the last victim that gave me the clue,” he answered. “That despite his addiction, this Howser character actually did look presentable and even worked. Think about it: for a homeless junkie, that’s actually glowing success.”

“Which means that he also matches the primary prey scheme of the killer,” Moralez was a smart woman and an experienced detective. She caught on with impressive speed.

Murietta nodded. “We need a deeper look into the past of the other homeless victims. Who knows, perhaps we’ll find a similar pattern.”

“That will take a long time,” Moralez warned him. “Wong is good, but fighting bureaucracy is a long and hard battle.”

“We don’t _have_ the time for that,” he said. “Every minute that we waste can cost the next young man his life. Have you noticed how the intervals between two murders keep getting shorter?”

“Of course,” she replied. “So, what are you going to do? Have Four-Eyes hack the databases to all affected precincts?”

“And more, if I have to,” he said. “But first, I need to go down to the morgue and take a look at the victim’s wounds.”

“What for? I’ve already seen them – they’re the same as by all other victims… just worse,” Moralez said with a shrug.

Murietta sighed. “You know that you can’t always see everything that I can see… or smell,” he reminded her.

Moralez gave him a piercing look. “Do you have a suspect? Because if you do, you ought to tell me, you know.”

“I don’t know _who_ it is,” he answered, choosing his words very carefully, “but yeah, I have a, let’s say, a hunch of what kind of person it might be. Which is another reason why I need to pay Four-Eyes a visit… and Hawk probably too. This might be one of _those_ cases; one that belongs under his jurisdiction.”

“Be careful, Joaquin,” Moralez rarely called him by his given name; only when she was _really_ frightened. “Be _very_ careful. The captain has called in the FBI.”

“What?” He realized he’d been shouting and lowered his voice hurriedly. “What for? All murderers happened within the boundaries of Los Angeles; this is not a federal case.”

“He’s called for the BAU,” Moralez whispered. “Those are the highest qualified profilers of the whole country, Joaquin – it’s by no means sure you’ll be able to fool them. Whatever you may need to do to cover your tracks, do it _now_ , because tomorrow it might already be too late.”

That was devastating news indeed, but Murietta wasn’t willing to declare defeat just now.

“When are they supposed to be here?” he asked.

“They’ll take off from Quantico at ten in the morning,” Moralez replied.

“Then we still have time. Even by plane, it will take them a couple of hours to get down here from Virginia,” Murietta thought over his chances for a moment. “Can you cover for me tonight? I need to go to Four-Eyes… now more than before.”

Moralez nodded. “Of course I can. Go and do what you have to do – and for God’s sake, be _careful_!”


	2. Part 02

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I haven’t been able to figure out Hotchner’s actual age, I gave him that of the actor (Thomas Gibson) who plays him.

**PART 02**

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dr. Spencer Reid had just finished his daily letter to his mother when his cell phone buzzed. Seeing on the display that the caller was JJ, he sighed involuntarily. A call from JJ meant that they had a new case, which meant that he’d have to go to the office a great deal earlier than originally intended, which, on the other hand, meant that he had to put the basic idea for his BA thesis in philosophy back into a little used corner of his formidable mind until the case was solved and he _might_ get an afternoon – or even a whole day – off. Unlikely as _that_ sounded.

The necessity to cut his creative early morning short annoyed him a little. He liked his work as a profiler and believed in it, even after his recent ordeal, but sometimes he wondered if choosing a purely scientific career wouldn’t have suited his abilities better, after all. As much as he knew he was needed at the BAU, he also often felt that he was intellectually underused – which was why he’d toyed with he idea of a new thesis lately. To give his brains a proper workout… before he’d rot them completely with Dilaudid.

Unfortunately, his work required such an amount of his time that he hadn’t found a chance to at least outline the idea properly. There was always one more case that needed to be solved – preferably by yesterday or the day before – and he just couldn’t work on the plane, not even when all his colleagues were asleep. He needed his own surroundings to achieve that particular mindset that would make creative work possible. The plane was definitely _not_ the right place for that.

He sighed again and picked up the call. As he’d guessed, they had a particularly disturbing case. Debriefing would be at eight and they’d leave for LA at ten.  
  
Reid acknowledged, picked up his emergency bag that was always packed for such unexpected calls, pocketed a few e-books to have something to read, just in case, holstered his weapon and left the house. He’d just have enough time for a visit at _Stafford's_ , the little, independently owned coffee shop he frequented when he was home, before riding the subway to his workplace.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
When he reached the FBI building, he found the team already gathered in the bullpen… well, with the exception of Garcia, of course, who was probably busy researching all available facts in her office. Reid took his usual place, ignored the usual juvenile jab from Morgan about the dark rings under his eyes, nodded his greetings to the others, returned JJ’s somewhat tremulous smile and looked around expectantly to learn about this new, urgent case.

Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner, a dark, handsome man whose austere demeanour made him look older than his forty-five years, cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention.

“We’ve been called by the West Bureau of the LAPD to help them with a series of brutal murders that have happened across half Los Angeles during the last four to six months,” he began. “So far, there have been fourteen known victims. We have no idea yet how many more there could be. As you can see,” he gestured at the photos put up on the whiteboard, “the unsub is extremely violent.”

All eyes turned to the pictures, and now Reid understood why JJ had been so… queasy, just a moment ago. After her encounter with Tobias Hankel’s man-eating dogs, seeing so many victims with their throats torn out as if by some particularly large predator must have awakened still-too-fresh, horrid memories.

“Are you sure we’re looking for a murderer and not just for some rabid animal?” Derek Morgan, the only team member truly familiar with dogs, asked. “Those wounds look an awful lot like as if they’d been caused by a dog… or a wolf… or any other kind of large canine. And urban wolves had been a threat in many cities for quite some while.”

“That must have been a huge animal – if it was one,” Prentiss looked at the garish photos with her usual detached self-discipline, but her face was deathly pale. “Or a whole pack of them. I don’t think a single dog or wolf could have caused quite such damage.”

“Could the CSI find any DNA in the wounds at all?” Morgan asked.

“I didn’t have the time to read the autopsy reports yet, but we can ask Garcia,” Hotch replied. “I’m sure she already has.”

“That’s more than likely,” Morgan agreed and reached for the phone.

“You’ve reached the oracle of ancient wisdom and secret knowledge – how can I be of assistance?” Garcia’s voice – almost obscenely cheerful in the light of the horrible crime – answered his call.

“Hey, sweet cheeks, have you got the autopsy reports from our new case?” Morgan asked.

Garcia answered in a tone that almost made them see her exasperated eyeroll with their inner eye.

“Have you forgotten whom you are speaking with, hot stuff? Of course I have them – and I hope you guys already had breakfast, because these are not the kind of sight one would want on an empty stomach.”

“They’re not the sight you’d wish for in any condition, if the crime scene photos are any indication,” Morgan replied. “Can you tell us if there was any DNA found in the wounds?”

“Yep,” Garcia replied, “and before you start asking something stupid, no, it wasn’t from a dog. Or from a wolf. Or from any other animal with big teeth.”

“You mean a _human_ has bitten the victims?” Morgan asked, very obviously shocked.

Reid couldn’t blame him. Murderous animals would be bad enough, but _humans_ killing that way… Although, considering the cases that landed on their desks on a regular basis, he perhaps shouldn’t be surprised by anything in these days.

“Nope,” Garcia replied promptly. “Not unless that human had the jaws of the Hound of Baskerville or whatnot. No, I said that the only DNA found in the wounds was human, not that it got there while that human actually _bit_ the victims.”

“How would he – or was it a she? – get his DNA into the wounds otherwise?” Prentiss asked, bewildered. “And, more importantly, why? That would make all the efforts to make it seem like the attack of some large predator rather pointless, wouldn’t it? Is the DNA in the system?”

“Nope,” Garcia replied. “It’s male, that much is certain, but it has never come up yet… and trust me, I’ve searched all available databases in the States – even a few less available ones. Nothing. Nix. Nada.”

“As for the why,” Reid intervened, “this can very well be a series of ritual killings, in which case we’re going to have a hard time figuring out the motivation behind them.”

“Do you have any ideas?” JJ asked.

Reid concentrated for a moment. “The closest think I could think of would be someone with strong tribal roots who identifies with his totem animal so strongly that he needs to imitate the hunt.”

“Or one of those vampire wannebes on crack,” Morgan commented dryly. “Considering how many idiots believe to be the next incarnation of Count Dracula or Nosferatu, especially in the Goth scene of LA…” he trailed off because Hotch shook his head.

“This is not the work of a simple madman,” the unit chief said. “According to the detective assigned to the case, a certain Joaquin Murietta from the West Los Angeles Community Police Station, the unsub targets a very narrow slice of the population: young Caucasian males of a certain type, who’ve achieved a great deal of success in their chosen field, despite their relative youth.”

“Jealousy, perhaps?” Prentiss guessed. “Could he be envying what they had and he doesn’t have?”

“That’s rather unlikely,” Reid quickly scanned the detective’s report; being a speed reader came in handy in such occasions. “Six of the victims were homeless people, living on the streets.”

“True; but perhaps they, too, had potential at once, potential that they wasted, after the years of their youth,” Hotch said. “They might have failed spectacularly later on, but at least at one moment of their lives, they might have been very successful, some even celebrities.”

“We definitely need to learn more about _all_ the victims,” Morgan said. “Victimology won’t be easy in this particular case.”

“You said ‘a certain type of young Caucasian males’,” Prentiss said to Hotch. “Are there physical similarities between the victims? These crime scene photos are not very… conclusive when it comes to their original looks.”

Hotch nodded. “Garcia, can you show us photos of the victims? I mean pictures of how they looked _before_ …”

“Watch your screen, oh ye of little faith,” the technical analyst replied.

The others did so, and whent hey had seen the photos of ten of the fourteen victims – some of the homeless ones hadn’t been identified with a hundred per cent certainty yet – the tension in the bullpen became almost palplable. JJ was the first to break the silence.

“Perhaps Reid shouldn’t go with us this time,” she said. “He matches the prey scheme of the unsub too well. It’s too risky.”

Reid rolled his eyes. “Oh, JJ, please!”

“She does have a legitimate point, pretty boy,” Morgan said. As the one specializing in crimes pertaining to obsession, it was only natural that he’d voice his opinion. “You match practically every single one of the unsub’s criteria.”

“In case you haven’t realized, I’m _not_ a boy!” Reid snapped with surprising anger. “I’m a grown man, and despite the questionable pleasure of having recently been displayed on the internet during drog-induced madness, I won’t let myself be victimized by anyone. Not even by my well-meaning colleagues.”

As soon as it was out, he regretted it already, seeing JJ’s hurt expression. He realized too late that JJ’s reaction was probably a reminiscence of her own emotions concerning posts cases in which he victims had been the same type of women as she was.

“Nobody tries to victimize you, Reid, least of all JJ, so stop overreacting,” Hotch said placatingly, cutting Reid’s still somewhat frayed nerves some slack. “She’s just concerned about putting you to unnecessary risk, and quite frankly, so am I.”

“And I appreciate it, but it isn’t necessary,” Reid answered stiffly. “I can take care of myself quite well, thank you very much. Now, can we concentrate on the case?”

There was a small, uncomfortable silence that lingered for a moment. Then Hotch shook himself mentally to get over it and continued.

“Detective Murietta, as the one coordinating the investigation in the West Los Angeles area, has sent us his preliminary analysis, which seems to be a surprisingly accurate one for somebody who’s not a profiler,” he said. "According to his theory, the unsub is someone beyond his first youth, perhaps between thirty and thirty-five, who most likely looks younger than his age. It’s possible that he isn’t very successful in his current job and envies his victims for their success. All this basically matches that which we have put together so far. But in order to get any further, we’ll need more information.”

“Is antropophagy involved?” Prentiss asked. “By the size and the location of the wounds it could at least be possible.”

Hotch shook his head. “No, unless you count the heavy blood loss and the fact that nobody seems to have a clue _where_ all that blood has gone.”

“Which brings us back to vampirism,” Morgan pointed out, this time deadly serious. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Or a very particular obsession,” Reid said. “The fact that he’s partially eviscerated the victims might suggest intended revenge over imagined wrongs.”

“Couldn’t it also be an inverted hate crime?” Prentiss asked. “The motivation to punish other young men for their success that has been denied the unsub himself wouldn’t necessarily exclude an ethnic motivation. There has to be a reason why he only murders _white_ men.”

“There can be several different reasons for that,” Reid said. “One of them being that he might see himself in those men and punishes them for _not_ being him, after all.”

“That’s a very good possibility,” Hotch nodded. “But we can’t rule out an ethnic motivation offhand, either. We just need more evidence; which is why we’re leaving for LA at ten. Any further questions?”

“Nothing about the case itself,” Reid answered. “I’d like to learn more about this Detective Murietta, though. He seems to be a very observant man, even for someone who works in law enforcement.”

“I think Garcia will be able to dig up a few details,” Morgan grinned. “You will, baby, won’t ya?”

“You can bet your a… your _assets_ on it, hot stuff,” they could hear Garcia typing away furiously on his keyboard. “All right, here it is, boys and girls. Joaquin Murietta, age thirty-nine, born in Alamos, in the state of Sonora, Mexico. Migrated with his parents to California at the age of four. No siblings, no wife, past _or_ present, no children. With the LAPD for twenty-one years, served in the same precinct – that would be the West Los Angeles Community Police Station – for the last seventeen, climbed the ranks from simple police officer to Detective II gradually during those years. Has had the highest success rate in the West Los Angeles area since working together with his current partner. He’s received the Police Star twice so far and was proposed for the Police Medal of Heroism, which he didn’t accept after all, saying that there were other officers who deserved it more.”

“That’s all?” Reid couldn’t tell why he was so disappointed. Perhaps because with a name like that he’d expeced something more… spectacular. This was the short bio of perhaps every second successful detective in the LAPD.

“For now, it is,” Garcia answered, a bit defensively. “What do you expect after a quick search? Even a wizard like me needs time to do a more thorough job.”

“This is more than enough, Garcia,” Hotch interrupted. “Tell me something about this partner of his – who’s he?”

“Actually, it’s a _she_ ,” Garcia was typing again. “Detective Bianca Moralez, age thirty-three, born in Berkeley, California. She had a brother, Jamie, who chose to join the Marines but was killed under somewhat… unclear circumstances during a covert operation in Belize. The official declaration was suicide, but the whole thing is top secret. Not even Detective Moralez was given any further information. There might be something really ugly if the Corps has closed the case so air-tight. I could try to break into…”

“No,” Hotch interrupted empathically. “Absolutely _not_ , Garcia. We don’t need any trouble with the CIA again. Besides, it’s none of our business. What else can you tell me about this Detective Moralez?”

“Well, she started her career in the same precinct where she’s working now,” Garcia said. “At first, she did some undercover work for Vice… which couldn’t have been easy. She got transported to Homicide eight years ago and has been working with Murietta for seven. They’re permanently on night shift because neither of them has a family of his own; plus, one of the other detectives has night blindness, so they can’t rotate like other departments do.”

“Are you sure that’s the only reason?” Hotch asked sharply. “Or just some convenient cover-up for a disciplinary action they didn’t want to make public?”

“It seems genuine enough,” Garcia replied. “The officer in question, a certain Detective Harry Ioki, has been pulled off undercover work around the age of thirty-five, when diagnosed with _retinitis pigmentosa_.”

“With _what_?” Prentiss asked.

“ _Retinitis pigmentosa_ is an inherited eye disease that affects a person's ability to see at night,” Reid answered in Garcia’s stead. “It also affects their peripheral vision. It usually begins with decreased night vision at a fairly young age, but progresses to lessened peripheral vision as well.”

“Man, that sucks, especially for a cop,” Morgan hissed in compassion. “How quickly does a person's vision decline? This Detective Ioki – how old is he anyway?”

“The deterioration of the patients’ condition is usually related to their genetic makeup, so it varies with different people,” Reid said, and looked at the data transferred by Garcia to his laptop. “Detective Ioki is forty-five now, and his condition has barely worsened since he was diagnosed with _retinitis_. However, having him work during the night would be an unnecessary risk, which is why he and his partner, Detective Hoffs, regularly switch first and second shift with the third Homicide team, Detectives Turner and Barritza, while Murietta and Moralez had apparently offered to do night shift most of the time.”

“For a woman, it’s not that bad,” Garcia commented cheerfully. “Shopping is so much easier in the morning, while most other people are still sleeping or already at work. Cuts shopping time to the half.”

All men groaned collectively, while JJ and Prentiss exchanged amused looks. Hotch thanked Garcia, promised her to check in as soon as they arrived in LA – she worried about them all the time like a mother hen and would bombard them with calls and text messages otherwise – and then broke the connection. They had a plane to board at ten o’clock.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
Once in the air, they took their customary places and began with the pre-case preparations. Only Reid seemed preoccupied, leaning back in his seat and apparently searching for something in his eidetic memory. Even though he practically never forgot anything, he still needed a little digging in the biological database to unearth long-unused details.

“What are you thinking of, pretty boy?” Morgan asked, sitting down the seat opposite him. He knew all too well how Reid’s extraordinary mind worked but couldn’t resist the temptation to tease the young man about it from time to time.

“Oh, nothing important,” Reid answered easily. “I was just wondering how someone named after the most famous Mexican bandit could end up working in law enforcement.”

Morgan gave him a bewildered look. “Huh?”

“Joaquin Murietta, also known as the Robin Hood of El Dorado, was a semi-legendary figure in California during the Gold Rush, in the 1850s,” Reid explained. “He was either an infamous bandit or a Mexican patriot, depending on the point of view from which you look at him. There is little to no historic evidence about his life; sources can’t even agree about his actual birthplace, which is either assumed to have been one of the cities in Sonora, Mexico, or Quillotta, in Chile, near Valparaíso. Equally controversial are the legends of his life and deeds – even of his death.”

“How that?” Morgan asked.

“Well, one of the legends says that Captain Harry Love, the leader of the newly-founded California State Rangers, cornered him and his _banditos_ near Panoche Pass in San Benito County, and killed two of them,” Reid explained. “One of those was supposed to be Murietta himself, the other one his right-hand man, Garcia. The Rangers then took Garcia’s hand and Murietta’s head and displayed them in a jar, preserved in brandy as an evidence of their death.”

“Ugh,” Morgan felt slightly sick. “And I thought _we_ had weird cases. But that means the evidence of his death is pretty hard, isn’t it?”

“Not really,” Reid answered. “Because a young woman, who claimed to be Murietta’s sister, said that she did not recognize the head and argued that it couldn’t be his brother’s, as it didn’t have a characteristic scar on it that should have been there, due to some childhood injury. Also, numerous sightings of Murietta had been reported after the announcement of his death. It’s interesting that Love never displayed the head in any of the mining camps where Murietta could have been easily recognized. Some even accused Love and his men to have killed some innocent Mexicans, just to gather the reward money, which was five thousand dollars – a lot of cash in that time. In any case, the head was lost in the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, so we might never learn the truth. Forensic history can’t work without actual evidence.”

“Well," Morgan said after a long pause, trying _not_ to be completely overwhelmed with trivia… and losing, “you can always ask Detective Murietta if he was really named after this guy.”

“Perhaps,” Reid opened his laptop and rebooted it. “Perhaps I will. Right now, I must compare the forensic reports of all fourteen victims, though.”

Morgan caught the hint and left him alone, trying to get done some of his own work while they were on the way. Reid called up the reports and began to shift through the details, hoping to find something that would give them a clue.”


	3. Part 03

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For visuals: Four-Eyes is “played” by Michael Shanks.

**PART 03**

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
After making sure that he’d really got all the information there was about their newest victim, Joaquin Murietta went over to the morgue to take a look at the corpse. He was an old-fashioned cop who trusted his own eyes more than all those fancy instruments that filled the CSI labs.

Besides, he needed to see the wounds for real, to reassure – or reject, although that was a very small chance – his nagging suspicion about the true nature of the murderer. He wished with every fibre of his being to be proved wrong; but deep within he knew with a paralyzing certainty that he would be prove right.  
  
The morgue was all but abandoned during night, and that was fine with Murietta, because it meant that he could speak with Fujiyama undisturbed, without fearing that anyone else might eavesdropping on them. Sam Fujiyama, an elegant, silver-haired Japanese doctor well into his seventies, was one of Hawk’s people and a well-respected name in his field. He’d been the personal assistant of the famous Dr. Quincy in his younger years, the man who’d made forensics to what they were now, and had come to West Los Angeles some twenty-five years ago. Aside from Lieutenant Bronowski he was the one who’d worked the longest in this particular precinct.

“Detective!” he greeted Murietta with his usual cheerful manner, making the other man wonder once again why nearly all coroners seemed to have an almost perversely delightful nature. “Have you come to pay my newest patient a visit?”

Oh, yeah, and they also shared a somewhat morbid sense of humour, too.

“If you have no objections, Doctor,” Murietta replied patiently.

“Be my guest, then,” Fujiyama led him into the vaulted cellar where the corpse had already been prepared for the upcoming autopsy.

It was a disturbing sight, in reality even more so than on the photos. Not only the throat of the victim was torn open, his chest and his belly showed deep, slashed wounds, too, and some of his inner organs were either badly damaged or completely missing. Murietta briefly considered getting sick, then decided that from someone like him it would just be wrong… not to mention hypocritical.

“What can you tell me about the nature of the wounds?” he asked instead.

“You can see for yourself,” the coroner replied with a shrug. “I’m afraid it’s exactly the same case as all the others. The form and the location of the wounds, the blood loss… all the same, just the execution of the murder is even more savage than the ones before.”

“So… it _is_ one of our people,” Murietta said slowly.

The coroner nodded, deadly serious now. “Afraid so, Detective. And _that_ really complicates things.”

“Unless we find him before anyone else does,” Murietta said.

Dr. Fujiyama raised an eyebrow. “ _Him?_ Does it mean the CSI did find DNA in the wounds this time?”

“This time, and in the latest West-Hollywood victim, too,” Murietta answered. “The results just came in before I left to come here. Not that they’d be of any help – unless the culprit was some crazed newbie, he’d pre-date the DNA databanks.”

The coroner shook his head, slowly, thoughtfully.

“No, I don’t think it was an out-of-control neonate,” he said. “The killer is way too organized for that. He’s managed to murder _fourteen_ people, without leaving any hard evidence. _Nobody_ , not even one of us kills like that in a frenzy. The very nature of a frenzy would make such organized actions impossible. We must accept the fact that we have a serial killer among us.”

“Seems so, doesn’t it?” Murietta agreed darkly.

“You must speak with Hawk,” Fujiyama warned him. “This… this madness must end, or we’ll all suffer the consequences.”

“I can’t let Hawk run amok in the underbelly of the city,” Murietta replied tiredly. “Not before we know for certain _who_ our killer is – and we must be _fast_. The captain has called in a group of highly qualified FBI profilers, directly from Quantico, to help us solve the case. They’ll be here tomorrow morning.”

The coroner became paler than his patient on the autopsy table.

“That could be fatal,” he said tonelessly. “They’re not easily fooled, not even by us. How do you hope to cover our track?”

Murietta sighed. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Our contacts within the FBI are very limited; we can’t endanger the position of our insiders. I need to speak with Four-Eyes first, I think. See if he can find out anything about these BAU-people who’re coming.”

“No matter what he may find out, we can’t simply eliminate an entire group of FBI-agents,” Fujiyama pointed out. “Not without drawing too much attention.”

“Yes, we can, if there’s no other way,” Murietta replied grimly. “Even you must understand what’s at stake here.”

“I might only be a newbie of the outer circle, but I’m not an idiot,” the coroner retorted indignantly. “I know very well what is at stake. _You_ , however, must realize that the times when our people could do as they pleased, without fearing repercussions are over. Thanks to the internet and other technical achievements, this has become one very small planet. You should do well to catch up with the 21st century.”

Murietta rolled his eyes. “Don’t treat me like a fossil, Doc, I work with the same technology every day, have you forgotten? I’d like to deal with this problem without any… drastic measures myself. But the simple truth is that yes, if I have to choose between the lives of those profilers and our own safety, I _will_ choose our safety. You know what the odds were when you joined us; now you’ll have to live with the consequences, whether you like it or not.”

With that parting shot, he stormed out of the morgue, leaving a deeply concerned Dr. Fujiyama behind.

 *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***  
The traffic was unusually heavy that night; he almost wished he’d brought his motorbike instead of the Sedan. It would be much faster, and time was of utmost importance right now. It was bad enough that some phone calls just couldn’t be made from the police station, not even via his own cell phone. The risk of being caught and getting others in trouble was simply too great. The traffic-related delay only served to make him even more nervous. He had so much to do and so little time to do it… but there were some things not even he could influence.

It took him almost twice the usual time to reach his destination. He parked his car in the underground garage of the old-fashioned industrial building and rode the ancient elevator to the ground floor. As always, it was a sore trial for him. Not that he was claustrophobic – he was _not_ – but elevators had the tendency to get stuck between two levels, and getting trapped was not something he’d want for himself… or for anyone trapped with him.

Reaching the foyer of the building, he quickly scanned the plaques for any possibly changes. There shouldn’t be any – or if there were, he should have been informed well in advance – but one could never know. To his relief, everything looked the same as during his last visit. The plaques were that of the office of a private investigator, that of _Nabbit Enterprises_ (one of the biggest computer firms in California, owned by young billionaire David Nabbit) and _schrecknet.com.ca_ , the very place where he was planning to go.

He selected the beautiful stained glass door that led to both the detective bureau and the schrecknet portal, knocked and entered without waiting for an invitation. He came into a large, shaded anteroom, separated from the actual offices by a huge window in the wall, furnitured with antique-looking, stylish desks and bookshelves that made an interesting contrast to the up-to-date, high-tech equipment the employees used. There were also lush potted plants, although Murietta always wondered how they could live with so little light in there, and a few Tiffany lamps of stained glass, just to make the whole room look more elegant.

One of the desks faced the door directly. A stereotypical valley-girl sat behind it, wearing hip clothes and a plastic smile. She looked like the cardboard secretaries in dumb TV-series: with her long, straight blonde hair, overdone make-up and the trademark bored expression on her smooth, oval face. According to her name tag, she was called Harmony Kendall. Murietta had met her a few times already – she was the secretary of the PI – and while she really wasn’t academic material, he knew there was more to her than what the surface was showing.

The other desk stood a little on the side, with a scholarly man seemingly in his mid-thirties sitting behind it. The man was completely bald, with distinctly long earlobes and old-fashioned eyeglasses pinned to the bridge of his nose. He was wearing a dark grey three-piece suit with a white shirt and a black tie, and looked like a college professor, down to the golden tie-pin and pocket watch chain. He wore no name tag; actually, Murietta didn’t know his name, and he hadn’t met anyone yet who’d have known. People jokingly called him Four-Eyes, because of his glasses, and that was the only name he ever used among his kind.

He glanced up from the computer screen, his eyes surprisingly large and blue behind the glasses of his _pince-nez_ , recognizing the visitor from previous occasions.

“Detective Murietta,” he said in his pleasant tenor that always surprised people, coming from such a large body. He spoke with a very educated Boston accent. “Are you here to see Hawk? I’m afraid he’s not available at the moment.”

“That’s all right,” Murietta replied. “Actually, I’ve come to see _you_. We’ve got a… situation, and I need some… _sensitive_ background info.”

Their resident scholar and computer wiz noticed the emphasis at once, of course, and his hairless brows furrowed.

“I see,” he said, rising from behind his desk. “We should go to the archives, then. Harmony, could you take my calls for a while?”

“Sure,” the blonde with the plastic smile replied. “There isn’t much going on at the moment anyway.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The “archive” was a simple office, with the same elegant furniture as the anteroom, and didn’t look much at first sight. Murietta knew from previous experience, though that it contained the most sophisticated computer equipment in the whole state; after all, Four-Eyes got his updates directly from _Nabbit Enterprises_ , and that was the best of the best.

“Let’s see,” Four-Eyes said, sitting down to one of the antique-looking desks and produced a wireless keyboard with in-built mouse, seemingly out of nowhere. As he hit a key, the upper part of the desktop folded itself back, revealing a large LCD screen with the simple logo of _schrecknet.com_. “Give me the basics.”

Murietta told him about the case in a nutshell and about the immediate arrival of the BAU team, requiring all available data about the team members. Four-Eyes nodded and began typing away on his keyboard with such a speed that his long, slightly bent fingernails were clicking on the keys like the beak of a bird. A minute or so later, the required data started showing up on the screen. The files all had the original FBI emblem, which impressed the hell out of Murietta.

“You have access to the personnel database of the FBI?” he asked.

Four-Eyes grinned at him, flashing pointed teeth in the process.

“Not officially, no,” he admitted. “But I can sneak in from time to time, as long as I don’t get greedy. Do you want me to save for you the individual files of the team members?”

“I want everything you can give me,” Murietta answered.

“All right,” Four-Eyes started a program that would save and compress all the files while they were looking at them, and then called up the file of a handsome, dark-haired man. “Here we have the unit chief, SSA Aaron Hotchner, born in 1962, divorced, with a son of two. Prior to joining the BAU, he was a lawyer, a prosecutor and, at one point, SWAT. He sometimes teaches hostage situations and negotiations.”

“With other words: excellent Ventrue material,” Murietta commented. “ _Navital & Waters_ could certainly put him to good use, if needs must be. Any other living family, aside from his son and ex-wife?”

“One brother, twenty-seven years old,” Four-Eyes raised a surprised eyebrow. “Apparently, he gave up his place at law school and chose to work in some restaurant in New York and become a gourmet chef eventually. Now that’s a strange choice.”

Murietta shrugged. “Not everyone is inclined to spend their entire lives among criminals,” he said. “His location could be a problem, though, should we have to… erm… _draft_ Agent Hotchner, in the end.”

“Your euphemisms never cease to amaze me,” Four-Eyes replied dryly. “I don’t think you need to worry, though. The two don’t seem too close.”

“Let’s hope so,” Murietta still wasn’t happy about that particular detail – New York was hostile territory for his people, after all – but there was nothing he could do about it. “What about the other team members? Who’s the second-ranking agent?”

“That’s an interesting question,” Four-Eyes consulted his PC and opened several additional windows, each of them showing confidential information, for he viewing of which he most certainly _didn’t_ have the necessary clearance – not that such technicalities had ever hindered Four-Eyes in getting what he wanted.

“Well?” Murietta asked impatiently.

“It seems that the ranking agent – who, however, was _not_ the unit chief – left the team a few weeks ago, due to severe emotional burn-out,” Four-Eyed replied. “Right now, they’re somewhat understaffed, as they haven’t taken anyone else in his stead so far. The other key figure seems to be Derek Morgan. Born on June 6, 7973, as the son of an African-American father and a Caucasian mother… you know, this political correctness is getting a little tiresome. What kind of term is ‘Caucasian’ anyway? As if all white people would hail from Siberia or whatnot…”

“Four-Eyes,” Murietta said with forced patience. “The _details_.”

“Details, right. Well, the man has a black belt in judo and runs FBI self-defence classes, which is pretty impressive if you ask me.”

“I don’t…” Murietta said through gritted teeth, but if he thought he could intimidate Four-Eyes, he was mistaken.

“Never mind,” their resident geek said with a shrug. “The man specializes in crimes pertaining to obsession. Previously, he served in a bomb squad unit _and_ in the Marine Corps. This is a tough guy if you’d ever need one.”

“What about his family background?”

“Well, he has two sisters, Sara and Desiree. His father died in an attempt to stop a robbery when he was ten, and he even got to watch it. Lovely. He had a somewhat troubled time after what – small wonder – earning a juvenile criminal record.”

“What for?”

“Small offences, mostly: fighting and some vandalism. He grew up in a tough urban Chicago neighbourhood, after all.”

“Well, he managed to get out of that milieu somehow, didn’t he? Or else he wouldn’t have ended up with the FBI.”

“He got a college football scholarship, with the help of a local youth center coordinator… oh, dammit!”

“What is it?” Murietta asked impatiently. The fact that Four-Eyes had used to be a college professor in Boston once not only resulted in a somewhat stilted vocabulary at times, but also in the unnerving tendency to trail off in the middle of a sentence and follow his own thoughts, regardless what he was doing at the given moment.

“Some frigging mentor that was,” Four-Eyes said, rather to himself than to the detective; his blue eyes turned silver with rage. “Taking vulnerable young boys under his wings, just to abuse them for his own sick pleasure! And they call _us_ monsters! I wish the scum wasn’t dead yet – I’d have so much fun eviscerating him…”

“Get a grip, Four-Eyes, this is not the time for one of your moral outrages,” Murietta said sharply. “Yes, it sucks, and such bastards ought to be castrated without painkillers, but this Morgan character _has_ survived it and will be here in a few hours, so what else can you tell me about him?”

“Not much,” Four-Eyes pulled himself together with considerable effort. “He’s single, rides a motorbike and has a dog named Clooney.”

“Where do you find details like that?” Murietta was impressed against his will.

“Trust the government to spy on its own employees,” Four-Eyes said cynically. “I couldn’t gather a tenth of my data if they didn’t have extensive files on their own people. And I _mean_ extensive. The fact that Morgan was molested as a kid is nowhere officially recorded; apparently, it came out during a case and already found its way into his… _confidential_ file.”

“Which you just happened to hack,” Murietta said with a grin.

Four-Eyes shrugged. “It wasn’t as easy as it looks. Whoever encrypted that file was good… _very_ good. I’ve just been a lot longer in this business.”

“Useful, that,” Murietta commented, giving Derek Morgan’s secret file another glance. “He sounds like someone Salvador would love to have among his people.”

“Mm-hm,” Four-Eyes agreed. “Born to be Brujah. He has the strength, he has the anger – and he has the intelligence so many Brujah still lack in these times.”

“I’ll inform Salvador,” Murietta said. “If we have to make drastic steps, let’s make the best of it. So, who else is there? This woman, the one with the dark hair – who is she?”

“Someone you’d want to be extra careful around,” Four-Eyes warned him. “She’s a celebrity… well, almost. The daughter of Ambassador Elizabeth Prentiss who used to work in the Ukrainian Embassy. Agent Prentiss is fluent in Arabic and Spanish, and even knows some Russian, so think twice about what you say to Moralez when she’s with you.”

“She speaks _Arabic_?”

“She lived in the Middle-East during her childhood, when her mother was assigned there.”

“How long as she been with the BAU?”

“A little less than a year. She was accepted due to some manipulation from the side of Section Chief Erin Strauss. Before that, she worked for ten years for the FBI, primarily in the Midwest. Oh, and she graduated from Yale! That’s impressive.”

“Less cultural snobbery and more details, Four-Eyes!”

“There aren’t any there. Unless you’re interested in her references and earlier cases.”

“Just the references. I don’t have time for the cases, although they could be an interesting read, I think.”

“I’ll send you everything to your home PC in an encrypted message,” Four-Eyes promised.

Murietta nodded. “Thanks. Now, who’s the blonde there?”

“SSA Jennifer Jareau, their media liaison. She’s the one who picks the cases the team works on. She also has the best test results on the shooting range. There are very few personal data, save that she grew up in East Allegheny, Pennsylvania.”

“That’s not much,” Murietta said, concerned. Unknown factors could prove dangerous; which was while he didn’t like them.”

“Well, she either leads a fairly boring life or is excellent at covering her tracks,” Four-Eyes replied. “Not even her own agency has more about her.”

“That’s a shame. We’ll have to keep a close eye on her, then. She’s a dark horse, and those are always the highest risk factors. Is there anyone else?”

“Yes, a certain Doctor Reid.”

“Doctor? They’ve got a civilian on the team?”

“No, he’s an agent all right, but people seem to be utterly impressed by the fact that he has three doctorates already.”

“Three? How can one have three doctorates in criminology?”

“Theoretically, it would be possible, as there are many different disciplines,” Four-Eyes corrected in his best pedantic manner. “However, Dr. Reid has his doctorates in mathematics, chemistry and engineering.” He opened up another window. “Apparently, he also holds BAs in psychology and sociology, which have a little more in common with his current occupation.”

“Five different degrees?” Murietta was flabbergasted. “How old is that guy? Ninety?”

“Twenty-six,” Four-Eyes replied matter-of-factly.

“That’s an awful lot of different degrees for someone barely out of his diapers,” Murietta said with an accusatory undertone in his voice.

Four-Eyes shrugged. “He has an IQ of 187, an eidetic memory and can read twenty thousand words per minute. I wish I had such students in my time as a college professor.”

“And _I wish_ this Reid person were beyond sixty, fat and balding,” Murietta replied, studying he photo of the slender, dark-haired young man with steadily growing dread. “Because based on who he is and what he looks like, he’ll be the ideal target of our killer.”

Four-Eyes blinked a few times. He rarely paid attention to the news, but the series of murders hadn’t gone by him unnoticed. Not that it would have gotten particularly close to him. He was a fairly stoic individual.

“I see your point,” he said. “An unfortunate aspect indeed. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Yes,” Murietta said. “I have reason to believe that even the homeless victims exceeded in something – or at least used to exceed once. I need to know what that is. And I need every detail, every report to each of those murder cases.”

“I thought you’d get those on the official way, now that it has become a shared problem,” Four-Eyes remarked.

“I will, but the official way is too frigging slow,” Murietta answered. “We need to move forward fast; especially as the BAU is about to bring us the ultimate bait. Can you imagine what it would mean for us if one of the FBI’s star profilers got slaughtered and the traces would lead to us?”

“Yes,” Four-Eyes said dryly. “When it comes to such possibilities, I do have a vivid imagination indeed.”

“Can you get me the data?” Murietta urged.

“Of course,” Four-Eyes was starting several search programs already, none of which was entirely legal. “This will take some time. I’ll send you everything as a compressed file, hopefully within two hours.”

“Thanks, Four-Eyes.”

“ _De nada_. I’ll make you the same price as always, plus ten per cent hazard pay. I had to reach into some really hot wasp’s nests this time. But if there’s a chance that one of us is involved, I _must_ inform Hawk. You know that.”

“Tell him everything you think he needs to know,” Murietta said. “But ask him not to act before we had the chance to speak. This beast must be neutralized; but it can’t happen so that it would endanger the rest of us.”

“Hawk is not a fool, detective,” Four-Eyes sounded a little insulted. “He’s been doing this job for decades and never made a mistake. Not one that would make him get caught, anyway.”

Murietta nodded. “I know. But he’s very… _enthusiastic_ about his duties, and this is not the time when we could afford to be carried away.”

Four-Eyes promised to do his best to hold the ex-Enforcer back for as long as he could. He was a resourceful man, and not just where information gathering was considered, so Murietta left the building somewhat reassured. Once on the street, he switched on his cell phone.

“Here is Joaquin,” he said in Spanish to the woman who picked up on the other end of the connection. “Tell Carlyle that we’re going to need the safe house.”


	4. Part 04

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Agent Sandoval has nothing to do with the similarly-named character in _Earth: Final Conflict_. He’s just been based on that character because I find Von Flores absolutely wonderful. Yeah, I’m that shallow. *g*
> 
> Lieutenant Bronowski is an original character, “played” by Brian MacNamara. The _Crowne Plaza Hotel_ is an actually existing place, and the LAPD statistics are real. It’s amazing what you can do with Google.

**PART 04**

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
By the time the BAU plane landed on the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, Reid had memorized every gory detail of the new case. Not because he wanted to – he already had enough stuff for nightmares, personal and professional, for the next decades – ha had no other choice. Having an eidetic memory, while it often came in handy, did have its disadvantages, too.

 _I guess everything comes at a price_ , he thought absent-mindedly, while leaving the plane.

They were welcomed by the representative of the local FBI field office, a short, sleek, smooth-mannered man from the Philippines by the name of Ronald Sandoval, and escorted to the cars they would be using during their stay in LA: Then they drove to the West Los Angeles Community Station, from where the city-wide investigation would be coordinated.

“Is the local office involved in the investigation?” JJ asked.

She went with the car driven by Sandoval, who alone knew the way. Reid was the only one going with them; the others followed Sandoval’s car with their respective vehicles.

Sandoval shrugged. “To a certain extent, yes, although we’re trying not to step on the toes of the LAPD detectives. A quarrel about competences wouldn’t be helpful; besides, they know their jobs. I’ve been delegated to the case to coordinate the work of the various police stations affected by the murders, and to serve as a counsellor. But that’s all the FBI involvement there is.”

“In that case we’ll be working together,” JJ said. “I’m the team’s liaison with local FBI branches and police agencies.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Sandoval replied politely, but his stiff stance and unreadable body language belied the courtesy of his words.

No, he was not the least happy with the presence of the BAU team, although he did an excellent job hiding that fact. Reid wondered why he would resent their help – was it simple professional jealousy or had the local agent a few skeletons in his cupboard and was afraid that they might be found?  
  
Some twenty minutes later they reached their destination and were led to the Homicide department, which was situated on the second floor of the old brick building. The local detectives were already waiting for them… and not only the detectives. There was a uniformed sergeant with them – probably representing the regular patrols – and an elderly man of Japanese descent who stood out of the crowd with his elegant suit like a sore thumb.

While most faces were a little wary, Lieutenant Bronowski, a big, handsome, open-faced man in his early fifties, seemed genuinely relieved to see them.

“I’ve been working in this precinct for twenty-six year and seen a lot,” he said, “but never anything even vaguely like this. We’re grateful for all the help we can get.”

He then introduced his three Homicide teams, which were interesting ones, to say the least. Detective Ioki – the man with the night blindness – and his partner, Detective Hoffs, a charming black woman, were both in their mid-forties; Detectives Turner and Barritza near fifty. It seemed that Murietta and Moralez were the youngest ones. Their technical analyst – and such Garcia’s local counterpart – was a tiny, fragile Chinese woman named Wong, who must have delayed her retirement by a decade or two to keep working here, by the looks of her. Sergeant Sanchez, the uniformed cop, looked like someone who’d been the terror of trainees for ages, and the coroner, Dr. Fujiyama – the elderly Japanese in the suit – had probably hit seventy already.

The only outsider at the moment was the representative of the Central Bureau of the LAPD, Detective Kate Lochley: a pretty blonde with a somewhat hostile attitude that, strangely enough, seemed to be aimed at her local colleagues rather than at the BAU-team. Reid wondered whether it was just the usual rivalry between precincts or something more… personal. It was hard to tell with her general coldness towards everyone.

Mutual introductions done, Hotch launched the briefing with a short summary of the fourteen known cases.

“Based on the preliminary analysis of Detective Murietta, we can assume that the unsub is probably a Caucasian male beyond thirty-five, with little or no success in his job,” he then said. “He murders and mutilates his victims because they have achieved a level of success that he, personally, could never manage.”

“What about the homeless victims?” Detective Ioki asked.

“He probably punishes them for failing the same way he’s failed,” Reid answered. “However, we’ll need to do a much more detailed victimology on those particular victims – who they were, what specific talents they might have had, how they ended up on the streets… that sort of thing.”

“Every new detail can help to complete or modify the profile,” Prentiss added. “When we have a clear image of the man we’re looking for, we’ll be able to find him.”

“Your preliminary report said something about the possibility of a reversed hate crime,” Agent Sandoval said.

Morgan shook his head. “Theoretically, it _would_ be possible, but it’s rather unlikely,” he answered. “Ethnically motivated hate crimes are a lot less organised. Someone who has a deep-rooted hatred for young, successful white males wouldn’t kill within such narrow borders. He’d kill randomly, targeting wealthy-looking men, not just a very specific type.”

“The bottom line is? We need to know more about the victims, especially the homeless ones,” Hotch said. “I know the affected police stations have done a great deal of background research, but from now on, we need to coordinate our efforts. We might also need the help and the resources of the local FBI bureau. JJ, I want you and Agent Sandoval to work on this aspect.”

JJ nodded. “Sure. We’ll set up a hotline between Garcia and Ms Wong, so that they can work on the data in tandem.”

“Agreed,” Hotch said. “We also need to see the crime scenes. Every single one of them.”

“What for?” Detective Lochley asked indignantly. “Our people did a thorough job on them. They’re professionals and damn good at their jobs.”

“Yes, but they look at a crime scene from a very different angle than we do,” Hotch explained. “We need to see the crime scene in order to get into the unsub’s mind. That’s how we work… well, part of it.”

“In that case we should build small teams,” Detective Murietta suggested. “Say, one of your people and one of ours. There are fourteen crime scenes to date; this way we’ll save time, and at least one of our teams can keep working on the other cases.”

Hotch nodded in agreement. “Which scenes would you suggest we visit first?”

“The homeless shelters,” Murietta answered without hesitation. “Those are the victims we know the least about; perhaps the other residents can be off assistance. If they’re willing to talk to the police, that is.”

“Ioki and I could infiltrate some of those shelters,” Detective Hoffs offered. “We both used to be undercover cops; and we don’t match the prey scheme of the killer – too old, not white enough, and I’m not even male. The people would talk to another homeless person.”

Lieutenant Bronowski looked at Hotch in askance. “What do you think, Agent Hotchner?”

“It’s a risk, but it could prove useful,” Hotch admitted. “I’d be happier of one of us could go with you, though.”

“I’m the only one who’s already worked undercover; I’ll go,” Morgan offered. Hotch nodded.

“All right. Work out convincing backstories. Create the necessary drop points and the means to deliver information without raising suspicions.”

“We can use the uniformed patrols for that,” Sergeant Sanchez said. “My officers have contact with homeless people all the time.”

“Who call it harassing,” Detective Turner added with a grin.

Detective Hoffs shrugged. “That’ll only make our job easier.”

“Good,” Hotch said. “I need someone who’d check out the crime scenes and backgrounds of the more… prominent victims with Agent Prentiss and me. Two teams.”

“I’ll go with Agent Prentiss,” Detective Lochley said. “We can take the Newton Area and the Rampart area, checking the victims in that part of Downtown and the Fashion District.”

“And I’ll check the Central area with you, Agent Hotchner,” Detective Barritza offered. “I’ve lived near the City Hall for quite some years and am familiar with the neighbourhood.”

“What about me?” Reid asked, seeing that all the others had been paired up with local cops – except him.

“You, Dr. Reid, will be my personal responsibility,” Murietta replied. “You’ll stay with Moralez and me and won’t go anywhere without one of us keeping a close eye on you… not even to the head.”

Reid felt the heat rising in his cheeks. “I don’t need a bodyguard,” he protested hotly.

“Not usually, perhaps,” Murietta allowed. “But in this particular case, yes, you do. You’re the perfect bait for our killer, and I won’t let you die on my watch. So, you either stick to us like Velcro or take the first plane back to Quantico. It’s your choice.”

“Come on, it won’t be so bad,” Detective Morales tried to calm down the furious young profiler who was literally spluttering with anger. “You’ll get to see the most interesting places of West LA with us.”

Reid glared daggers at her but didn’t answer. He hoped that Hotch would interfere on his behalf, but the unit chief looked actually relieved to know that he’d be safe-guarded, so he gave up.

“Good,” Lieutenant Bronowski said, clearly as much relieved as Hotch was. “Then this is settled. We’ve booked you rooms in the _Crowne Plaza Hotel_ , as it has a central location between affected precincts. As soon as you’ve checked in, you can freely dispose over your working schedule – and that of your assigned partners. This case has been given priority by the captain.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
With that, the briefing was adjourned till the next morning, and the BAU team was accompanied by their local partners to take them to their hotel… all but one. Reid was a little shocked when he saw that Murietta didn’t follow the other cars.

“Aren’t you taking me to the hotel?” he asked.

“No,” Murietta said. “It won’t be safe enough for you. If this killer keeps an eye on us cops, and I’m sure he does, he won’t have any problems to get to you in a hotel.”

“Where are we going then?” Reid felt decidedly uncomfortable about being separated from his team colleagues. Besides, could he be truly certain, that these two could be trusted?

Moralez smiled at him. “To a safe house, which we run for exactly such purposes,” she said. “The people who run it can’t be connected to the police and so don’t draw any unwanted attention. That’s the best place for you to be as long as you’re here.”

Reid still didn’t like it, but there wasn’t a thing he could do about his situation – not at the moment anyway. Making a mental note to give his – hopefully – well-meant jailors the slip at the first possible time, he let them drive him to a little condo that looked very much like several dozen other that he’d seen along the way. Built in the typical Spanish-American style of the 1970s. It had a walled garden, with a dense net of warning sensors faming the top of the wall (although the untrained eye most likely wouldn’t have detected them), and there were well-concealed security locks on both the gate and the front door of the house itself.

A muscular, good-looking Latino man in his late thirties came to greet them and introduced himself as Jesús Ramirez. He spoke with a faint Spanish accent, but not one Reid had ever heard before. Most likely not Mexican or Puerto Rican, then. Perhaps from somewhere deeper down in South America. He was wearing worn jeans and an open-necked, faded blue shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

“The fridge has been stocked up and the security system is online,” he told Murietta. “I’ll be here for the next twenty-four hours, until relief arrives.”

For all that he could have been the gardener or the janitor by his looks, there was something in his speech patterns and mannerism that practically screamed ex-military. Perhaps not a member of any regular army, but definitely someone who once had been part of a fighting unit – perhaps a guerrilla group – and one who’d seen real war, if the ugly scars half-visible under his shirt were any indication.

Murietta nodded. “Who will relieve you?” he asked.

“Allison,” Ramirez said; at Murietta’s apparent surprise, he shrugged. “Hey, hombre, this massacre affects us all. Salvador has been concerned about the killings for some time. If these Feds can help to stop it, more power to them. We’ll gladly baby-sit gringo boy here, and Allison is the best. You know that.”

Reid was about to protect again, but a warning look from Moralez made him shut up. If the Latino community decided to help them, who was he to complain? Besides, despite his brave words at the police station, and earlier on back in Quantico, the fact that he looked so much like the victims and thus was an obvious potential target, _did_ creep him out a little. Dealing with the memories of his captivity was bad enough… not that he was dealing with them all that well. Still, he didn’t want to give in too easily.

“So, now that you’ve placed me in my cell, what’s the next step?” he asked sarcastically.

“Lunch, coffee, and then we’re going to visit a few places,” Moralez replied.

“You two have lunch,” Murietta said. “Jesús and I need to re-check the security system; it hasn’t been used for a while, and I don’t want to take any risks. We’ll eat something on our round. Oh, and Doctor Reid, just so that you know – cell phones don’t work in this house.”

“We usually switch off our phones half a mile from the house already,” Moralez added, leading the slightly panicking Reid to the kitchen. “That way they can’t be located, should someone have too good contacts to the phone company. We’d ask you to do the same. It’s for your own protection.”

“But… but you can’t be in contact with your colleagues then,” Reid pointed out, absent-mindedly accepting the _burritos_ she placed before him.

Moralez laughed. “Oh, but we have a secure phone line installed in the house. The number is secret, of course, but we usually call in twice the hour to see if there’s anything new.”

“I’m surprised that the LAPD can run such a high maintenance hiding place,” Reid said. “According to statistics, you guys have been suffering from chronic underfunding and under-staffing in the recent history of the department. With only one officer for every four hundred and twenty-six residents, how can you afford to man this house?”

Moralez, who was about to start the coffee machine, shook her head.

“The house isn’t run by the police,” she said. “In fact, Lieutenant Bronowski is the only one who knows about its existence. This is a civilian initiative of the Latino community of LA, and it usually serves to protect political immigrants from Central- and South-America. Prominent ones, like intellectuals who dared to raise their voices against their government, or freedom fighters and the likes. Sometimes we – I mean we as the police – borrow it to house visiting celebrities who won’t be safe anywhere else. We had here Ernesto Cardenal once – I still have the book he signed for me – Pablo Antonio Cuadra, Pedro Chamorro Cardenal, although that was well before my time, or Dom Helder Camara, the late Bishop of Olinda and Recife.”

“Wasn’t Chamorro assassinated in 1978?” Reid asked.

“Not on _our_ watch,” Moralez said with emphasis, “and neither will you, if we have anything to say about it. Now, how much sugar do you want in your coffee?”

“Four teaspoons, please,” Reid answered, his mind boggling by the thought that he was being guarded the same way celebrities like Ernesto Cardenal – one of the major contemporary poets of Spanish language and most famous theologian of Nicaragua – has been. Sure, he _was_ valuable for the team, but not a person of such importance, and more likely would never be. It was a strange thought.

Moralez laughed. “Do you always drink your coffee in the form of sugar syrup?” she asked.

“I need lots of energy,” Reid said with a shrug. He’d had this discussion with his team members on a daily basis. “My brain functions best with lots of sugar and caffeine.”

Moralez shook her head in a motherly manner and placed the large mug of obscenely sweet coffee in front of him.

“Eat your lunch,” she ordered sternly. “Not even a skinny boy like you can live on coffee alone. You’re just skin and bones anyway.”

The absurd normalcy of that statement quelled Reid’s fears for a moment.

“Yes, Mom,” he laughed and began to eat his _burritos_ obediently.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
An hour later Murietta was back and declared that it was time for them to go.

“Where are we going?” Reid asked.

“To the church of the Nine Choirs of Angels,” Murietta explained. “There’s a fairly large homeless shelter attached to it, and Father Callaghan, the parish priest is an old acquaintance of ours. There are some nuns of the Coptic order working with the people there – they might know something.”

“I thought Morgan and those undercover cops were supposed to visit the homeless shelters,” Reid said.

Murietta nodded. “They are. But there are some Moralez and I have patronized for some time, and there we have better chances. This is one of those. Get your stuff, Dr. Reid, we need to go now. Moralez, can you write the preliminary reports in the meantime?”

“Why am I not surprised that I’m left with the paperwork again?” Moralez grumbled but didn’t seem really mad about it. They must have been a well-oiled team.

The church named after “The Nine Choirs of the Saint Angels” was not far from the safe house – they reached it in about twenty or twenty-five minutes, Reid didn’t really check the clock. It was a simple, elegant Gothic building, and it seemed quite old, although kept in a great shape.

“The oldest in Los Angeles,” Murietta said. “Rumours also say it was broken down and transported stone by stone from Ireland to LA by an eccentric millionaire who didn’t live to see _his_ church being rebuilt in the whole. I don’t know whether it’s true, though. I guess I could find out if I wanted to, but there was never really any need to do so.”

Reid nodded absent-mindedly, making a mental note of looking up the facts concerning the little church later. Not that he needed to – it had probably nothing to do with their current case – he was just curious. “Can we go in?” he asked. “I’d like to see it from the inside.”

“We have to,” Murietta replied. “The shelter can only be accessed through the church. It’s a measure to keep the people safe.”

The church seemed much bigger from the inside, with vast, sweeping ceilings high above, and ancient, pale tapestries hanging on the walls. Row upon row of pews filled most of the interior, a large altar dominating the end of the church opposite to where they stood at the entrance, and a wonderfully-carved, huge cross hung from the apse’s ceiling. The tall, narrow stained glass windows broke the late afternoon light into a merry rainbow of colours. It was a beautiful sight.

Currently, the church was empty, save for the young parish priest who seemed to be checking something in one of the large tomes already laid out for the evening service. He wore black jeans, and a black, dog-collared shirt. He had a pleasant, open face, and longish hair, just long enough to reach his collar. Sensing their presence, he looked up and came down the three steps of the dais to greet them.

“Detective Murietta!” he said with a welcoming smile, his voice accented heavily with Irish. “I’ve been waiting for you to come by one of these days. And this would be?”

“Dr Spencer Reid, from the FBI’s Behavioural Analysis Unit,” Reid introduced himself, shaking the priest’s hand.

“Nice to meet you, Dr. Reid,” the priest’s grip was strong and warm. “I’m Philip Callaghan. Now, how can we help you guys? It’s about the recent killings, isn’t it?”

Murietta nodded. “We need to talk to the people in your shelter,” he said. “How many do you have in average?”

“Between twenty and thirty, plus the same number coming additionally for a plate of warm food,” Father Callaghan replied. “That’s all the presbytery can handle. We don’t have much room in the building. But they won’t talk to you. They won’t even talk to _me_ , unless one of them wants to make a confession, and God knows that happens rarely enough.”

“We _must_ speak to them Father,” Reid insisted. “Some of the homeless victims aren’t even identified yet, and without a detailed victimology, we have no chance to find the killer.We have some photos with us…”

“Well,” the priest said thoughtfully, “perhaps the sisters can help you.”

“The sisters? You mean the nuns who work here?” Murietta asked.

Father Callaghan nodded. “They come over each day from their small convent, not far from here,” he explained. “Sister Maura has been the sacristan of this church longer than I have been alive, and Sister Ingrid is a nurse. They’re the ones who have the most contact with these people; they might be able to recognize some of the victims.”

Murietta and Reid exchanged somewhat doubtful looks. As a rule, social workers and other people taking care of the homeless didn’t cooperate with the police too eagerly. Finally, the LAPD detective shrugged.

“It’s worth a try, I guess,” he decided.

“Come with me, then,” the priest led them across the nave of the church to a small side door that opened to the anteroom of the presbytery, from which several other doors led to other rooms. One of those rooms was a small office, barely enough to house a desk and a wall-to-wall shelf for the official records.

A young and surprisingly pretty nun sat in the office, working on an aged computer. She wore a habit of coarse, undyed wool, held together by a leather girdle with three plaited crosses, an equally undyed linen wimple that covered her chest and her head like the hood of an astronaut, and a long black veil that reached down to her waist and was draped over her head. She looked up when they entered and smiled pleasantly.

“Can I help you?”

“That is Sister Consuela,” the priest explained, “she does all the booking and filing for the presbytery. We’re looking for Sister Ingrid and Sister Maura, actually.”

“Sister Ingrid is having a lesson with the children in the conference room,” the nun told him. “Sister Maura is controlling the other rooms right now,” she shrugged apologetically. “We need to do that at least once a day, because of the danger that someone might smuggle in drugs. Quite a few of our people are addicts, trying to get away from that stuff, and since they can’t afford therapy, the only way to do it is going cold turkey. We can’t allow anyone to endanger that.”

Father Callaghan nodded. “Very well, I know where to find her then.”

He led them down a corridor, with door leading to small rooms left and right.

“These used to be the rooms of the other priests, at the times when there were more of us – long before my time,” he explained, “as well as guest rooms. We use them to house the homeless people here now; mostly women with their children or elderly people. Sometimes we have a few younger ones as well. Not as residents, but they come regularly to eat. Sister Maura will be able to tell you more.”

“To tell more whom and about what, Father?” a voice rough with age asked. Turning back, they faced a truly ancient-looking nun who wore the same clothes as the young sister in the office. Her wrinkled face looked like seasoned wood in the white frame of her wimple, and her hand, with thickly seamed veins and swollen knuckles, spoke of a life spent with hard physical work.

“Sister Maura,” the priest said, “these men have come from the police. They’d like to show you some photos, to see if you can recognize any of them.”

The old nun looked at him sternly but with fondness at the same time; as a doting grandmother would look at a promising but somewhat wayward grandson. “I don’t work with the police,” she said curtly.

“I can understand that you want to protect these people here,” Reid interrupted, nodding vaguely in the direction of the rooms. “But the ones on the photos we want to show you are already dead. We jut want to know who they were.”

“What for?” Sister Maura asked. “The dead are dead. Even if I could recognize them, that wouldn’t make them alive again.”

“Perhaps not,” Reid allowed. “But giving them a name would make them persons again, instead of mere numbers on a murderer’s list of victims. And we’d like to find the man who’s murdered them, so that he won’t hurt more people.”

The old nun considered that for a moment – then she reached out for the photos.

“Show me,” she said. “Whoever they were, they deserve at least to have their names on the headstone.”

Reid handed her the photos, and she looked at every single one very carefully, seemingly unfazed by the gory details of the killing. Of the unidentified victims there were no other pictures than the crime scene photos, and Reid had originally hesitated to show them to an old woman who must have led a sheltered life in her cloister. To his surprise, the only emotion he could see on that withered old face was pity.

“Poor things,” old Sister Maura said. “That such young lives had to end in such a terrible manner. It’s _wrong_ , and I hope you will find the one who is responsible.” Then she selected two of the photos. “I know these two,” she said. “At least I think so.”


	5. A Touch of the Wild

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As before, LAPD statistics are genuine, thank Wikipedia.  
> The Preacher is a character borrowed from the X-Files episode “Sleepless”. He’s a recurring figure in the “Pathways” universe.  
> Branco Vukovic is modelled after a German actor/singer who, at one point of his career, used to be a model. And I don’t need to tell where Ethan Gold has come from, do I? *g*

**PART 05**

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“We are making some headway,” Hotch informed his team colleagues before the beginning of the next shift. Like many LA police stations, West LA Community Station had a 4 day-10 hour work week schedule, which meant that at least the uniformed cops who’d just come to work had to be debriefed again. “We – that is, Detective Murietta and Dr. Reid – have managed to identify two of the previously unknown victims. It seems that Detective Murietta’s original theory about how the unsub choses his victims has been right.”

“Were these two also talented in some ways?” Detective Barritza asked.

Hotch consulted his notes for a moment, and then pinned two photos onto the whiteboard. He pointed at the picture of a boyish-faced young man on the right; the victim wore a suit on that one and had a violin in his hand.

“This one, Ethan Gold, used to be a very promising young violin player,” he said. “He came from Pittsburgh and was considered extremely talented. Worked for a recording company for a year or so, even produced a couple of CDs of his own concerts… then got into an abusive relationship with an older man, broke his career and ended up on the streets where he used to earn some money with playing classical music on his violin.”

“How old was he?” JJ asked, staring at the photo of the very youthful-looking man in sorrow. It always saddened her when young lives got wasted like that.

“Twenty-five, apparently,” Hotch replied. JJ just shook her head in regret.  
  
“What about the other victim?” Prentiss asked, looking at the picture of a somewhat older but still fairly young, spiky-haired man who had a flawless face and large, soulful eyes. “Was he young enough for the unsub?”

“He was just beyond thirty," Officer Wong piped in. “I remember him being a model for the _Girard Fashion House_ – and a very popular one, at least for a while. He also tried to start a career as a singer, but with very little success. Then he tried to compose his own music, for which nobody showed much interest. The last report of him was that he wanted to become a dancer, but that’s all. A typical LA failure: after years on the cover of the greatest fashion magazines, he lost everything, began doing drugs… and ended on the streets.”

“Unfortunately, there are many such young people in LA, especially in the Hollywood area,” Lieutenant Bronowski agreed. “The glitter of Tinsel Town awakens false hopes in them; they grow overconfident… and fall deeply. Very, very deeply.”

“Is there any sign of them having known each other?” Prentiss asked. “Aside from having visited the same homeless shelter for a warm meal, that is?”

“There is _one_ place where at least three of our homeless victims used to work for a time,” Reid answered. “An exotic dance club called the _Vesuvius_. This Vukovic person tried his luck as a background dancer there. Ethan Gold gave two concerts, joined with a literary evening, two and five months ago. And one of the previously identified victims, Douglas Howser, helped out as an ersatz waiter sometimes. Whenever he managed to stay clean for a few weeks, that is.”

“Could it be a coincidence?” Detective Turner’s voice revealed that he didn’t really believe it could.

Reid shook his head. “Statistically, it’s unlikely. _Two_ of the victims working at the same place would already be stretching the limits of a possible coincidence, but three…”

“Have any of the upper class victims favoured the _Vesuvius_?” Lieutenant Bronowski asked.

Reid shrugged. “Garcia is still analysing their past-work activities. She’ll tell us as soon as she’s found a pattern.”

“That can take some time,” JJ commented. “Are there any other possible connections between them and the upper class victims, now that we know what they were doing for a living?”

Wong made a quick cross-reference search. “Well, one of those used to work for the _Girard Fashion House_ as a fashion designer,” she said.

The profilers exchanged interested looks. “Two tangents,” Hotch said thoughtfully. “That’s a beginning. I think we _have_ found a pattern. We need to see those places – both the fashion house and the dance club.”

Bronowski looked around his own people. “Anyone has a link to either of those places?”

“I know the owner of the _Vesuvius_ ,” Moralez raised her hand. “We helped her with one of her female dancers who got in trouble, a year or so ago. The Summer case, if you remember, Lieutenant.”

Bronowski nodded. “Yeah, I do. Well, let’s hope she’s still in a somewhat cooperative mood. By the way, haven’t you and Murietta investigated in a murder case involving Victor Girard?”

“We have,” Moralez said. “It was the case when one of his Puerto Rican seamstresses was murdered. But that was a simple case; she was killed by her own abusive husband. We got the guy and he’s still sitting in jail.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Bronowski said. “At least Girard knows you and will probably be cooperative. These people don’t like it when their business is connected to common crimes in any way.”

“I thought Fashion District would be my area,” Detective Lochley protested indignantly.

“It is,” Bronowski replied, “but in Girard’s case, I prefer to send someone who already does have the connections.” Lochley huffed but couldn’t fight the logic of the decision.

“Have Agent Morgan and Detective Hoffs checked in already?” Sergeant Elizabeth Cruz, CO of the uniformed cops from the day shift, asked. She was a small, wiry woman in her mid-fifties, with her jet-black hair pulled into such a tight bun that Reid’s scalp started hurting just from the sight of it.

“One of the regular patrols spoke to them,” Bronowski answered, “but they haven’t learned anything yet. It will take time. The homeless people have grown wary and suspicious, even towards their own kind, which is understandable, I guess. It seems, though, as if they were shunning potential future victims.”

“Which is also understandable,” Detective Barritza commented dryly. “They don’t want to be killed just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Yeah, but that way they’re endangering potential victims even more,” his partner said.

Murietta shook his head. “I don’t think so. This killer isn’t going after easy prey. All of his victims, without exception, have been murdered in places where he could have been caught red-handed… pardon the bad pun.”

“The upper-class victims have all taken steps to ensure their own safety,” Reid added. “One of them was killed in his own house, with the elaborate security system fully working, and his family sleeping upstairs.”

“And what does that mean for us?” Turner asked.

“It could mean two things,” Reid said. “Either we’re dealing with a severe case of devolution – a process by which the unsub begins to lose control, falling in a downward spiral, unable to control his urge to perform a particular offence – or he’s suffering from the delusion that he can’t be caught because he’s smarter than the police. Personally, I think the latter is the case.”

“Why so?” Lieutenant Bronowski asked. “He sure as hell seems crazy enough.”

“Yes, but he’s also highly organized; or has been, so far,” Reid pointed out. “He commits his crimes in a premeditated manner, leaving few to no clues. Organized offenders also typically choose their victims with precise specifications.”

“That certainly seems to be the case with this bastard,” Turner agreed.

“Which is exactly why we need to know more about the victims,” Hotch said, then he looked at Reid. “I want the fashion house connection checked out first. Speak with this Victor Girard character. Try to find out whether any of the other victims had in any way been connected to his business. The others continue to map the victims’ lives and environment. Send all oh so insignificant-looking detail to Garcia. If there is a pattern, she’ll find it.”

“What about the _Vesuvius_?” Detective Lochley asked.

“Later,” Hotch replied. “Right now, that seems to be the point where the paths of most future victims have crossed. If that is so, we’ll have to be careful, or the unsub might retreat from there, and we’ll lose the chance to catch him.”

“We should go there as simple customers first,” Prentiss suggested. “Try to get a sense of the environment, get familiar with the hunting ground of the unsub.”

“Or _one_ of his hunting grounds,” Murietta corrected. “We still don’t know enough to be sure about that.”

“I’ll call up their programme in a minute,” Officer Wong typed away on her keyboard with great speed. “Here it is. Tomorrow, Velvet Vellour – that’s the club owner – will read her poetry, and the Blount sisters will perform an acrobatic dance sequence.”

“Sounds interesting,” Prentiss commented. “Morgan will regret to have missed it.”

“He’ll have to try his luck later,” Hotch said dryly. ”We’re not on a vacation here. Anyway, I think the rest of us should go there as a group. Different viewpoints might bring different results, and in the end, a more complete picture.”

“Perhaps if the owner doesn’t connect us with the police, we’ll have more luck,” Prentiss said. Hotch nodded.

“Agreed. If Ms Wong can get us reservations, we’ll go as a group of businesspeople on a working holiday. However, we _will_ need at least one insider with us; someone whom the club owner hopefully wouldn’t recognize.”

“I’m out, then,” Detective Lochley said, clearly unhappy about the fact. “I’ve already butted heads with her a couple of times.”

“I’ll go,” Agent Sandoval offered, looking at JJ with a thin, amused smile. “If you don’t mind coming as my date, that is.”

JJ shrugged. “I could do worse,” she replied.

“But who’ll go with Dr. Reid?” Moralez asked. “I can’t; the regular clientele knows me too well that a different hairdo and a little make-up would fool them.”

“I don’t need an escort,” Reid answered. “Skinny little geeks like myself are usually alone, even within a group of co-workers. Anything else would only raise suspicions.” But there was a sudden bitterness in his voice that made his team-mates wonder for a moment.

Detective Ioki shook his head. “ _Nobody_ goes alone to the _Vesuvius_. But don’t worry, I’ll go with you… assuming, you can pull out the gay boyfriend act.”

“Can you?” Reid returned a little sharply.

Ioki grinned. “I used to be an undercover cop among high school kids and college students. I can play a pregnant woman if I have to.”

Everyone laughed at _that_ mental image – Ioki, while still looking youthful, had absolutely nothing feminine in his features or mannerism and was known as quite the ladies’ man in the precinct – and the general mood lightened a little. Even Hotch’s face softened a little for a moment.

“Very well,” he said. “Now as everyone knows their next target, I suggest that we adjourn the meeting until tomorrow morning.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
According to the previous agreement, Reid stayed with Moralez and Murietta for the rest of the day, and they drove him to the Fashion District to visit the famous _Girard Fashion House_. Although not very fashion-conscious himself, Reid had, of course heard about Victor Girard – who has not? While not as big a name as Armani, Gucci or Lagerfeldt, the man was nonetheless a celebrity in the world of fashion, and that in the third or fourth generation already. He produced mostly for the French market, for the former French colonies and South-East-Asia, and was considered the most popular French fashion czar next to Dior.

The building in the Fashion District wasn’t his home, of course – or rather, none of his several _homes_. It was only the main atelier where his designer worked. He had several other ateliers, since he also created costumes for movie studios, accessoirs, perfumes and a dozen or so related items. But this was the main one, and therefore the place where he could most likely be found.

Murietta had called in advance to announce their coming, of course, so they were expected and led directly to _Monsieur_ Girard’s office. It was a fairly large one, with massive, antique furniture, the windows covered with heavy, dark brocade curtains and crystal _luster_ s hanging from the ceiling.

Girard himself, in contrast to his environment, was a rather unremarkable person: a tall, lanky Frenchman of indeterminate age, with a mobile face, animated gestures and slightly long, mousey brown hair that barely reached his collar. He could be in his late forties or early fifties, and with his conservative suit and wire-rimmed glasses he looked more like a book-keeper than a fashion designer. Which was perhaps the truth. As the grandson or great-grandson of the “Grand Girard”, he was probably just the manager of the empire, with young, nameless yet talented designers doing the actual work.

In any case, he was friendly enough to the local detectives, whom he seemed to have known for quite a while; and not just from the one case they had worked on in his atelier. He looked at the pictures, paling slightly when he saw that of Branco Vukovic, commenting that the victim had been ‘a pretty boy, looked good on the catwalk but had little to no personality’ – and then selected another photo, one from the wealthy victims.

“This is Rémy Leblanc,” he said, becoming even more chalky white than before. “He’d used to work for me for two years, before he opened his own small studio. He designed jewellery: brooches and bracelets, mostly, sometimes also rings and colliers. His big breakthrough was an exposition in Madame d’Excavalier’s atelier in West-Hollywood, last month. Since then, he could barely keep up with the demands for his designer pieces. Every star and starlet in Hollywood wanted to wear Leblanc jewellery.”

“I guess the pieces will become collector’s items from now on,” Moralez commented dryly, “for astronomical prices. Who inherits Leblanc’s studio and the already existing pieces now?”

“Madame d’Excavalier and I, to fifty-fifty per cent, respectively,” Girard replied. “We were the ones who’ve financed the start of the studio. Rémy had nothing but his talent, so far. He was just beginning to make money. By the growing interest for his work, he could have paid us off within two years – and considering the amount of money we’d put into this business, that’s saying a lot.”

“What will become from his studio now?” Reid asked.

“That’s over,” Girard answered with a shrug. “His apprentice will probably manage to finish the last pieces – fortunately, Rémy used to make very detailed drawings to each of his designs, so that we can come out of this whole mess with a minimum of financial loss. But without his vision, the studio has no future. We’ll transform it into a prop manufacture or something similar. It’s a shame, really. Rémy could have reached so much, with his talent and his hard work.”

“Apparently, that was exactly what the unsub wanted to deny him: well-earned success,” Reid said quietly. “Just like with the other victims. Mr. Girard, can you tell me whether the ways of Mr. Leblanc and Mr. Vukovic ever crossed? They both worked for you, after all.”

“True, but in different times,” the fashion czar replied. “Branco already lived on the streets when Rémy came to us. I can’t see how they might have met.”

“And yet there seems to be a pattern,” Reid murmured. “Two of the victims worked for you. Three of them had a connection to that dance club, the _Vesuvius_. I’m fairly sure that we’re going to find more similarities.”

“Why don’t you and Moralez question the designers?” Murietta suggested. “I’ll write the protocol about the interview with Monsieur Girard in the meantime.”

“A good idea,” Moralez said enthusiastically and dragged Reid out, before she could be loaded with the paperwork again.

Once they were gone, Girard looked at Murietta in deep concern, his mannerism changing profoundly at once.

“I don’t like this,” he stated. “The evidence leads to my business… and to others of our people. That could be extremely dangerous… on several different levels.”

Murietta sighed. “I know. Believe me, I’m doing my best to end this… this madness, without revealing ourselves. But it’s not easy. Not only am I forced to drag around with me the perfect bait for the killer, I can also count on Hawk stepping into the game, and that could be really ugly. The possible collateral damage would be extensive.”

“You think one of our people is behind the killings?” Girard asked. There could be little doubt that it was, indeed, his opinion, but perhaps he still hoped he was wrong.

Murietta nodded. “Afraid so… and not just any of us. Someone from an old and very strong bloodline. No one else would have the strength and the skills… or the sufficient insanity to kill like this.”

“But no actual suspect so far?” Girard asked.

Murietta shook his head. “None. I need to speak to speak to _The Preacher_ , obviously – if there are any crazed killers among us, he’d be the one to know. But I don’t think this murderer would be openly, obviously mad. On the contrary.”

“No, it doesn’t seem so,” Girard agreed. “I particularly dislike how all these killings point towards our legal business. As if the killer wanted to expose us all. Our branches are so intertwined that if one of us falls, the others would go under, too. And what that means… I don’t have to tell you, do I?”

“No,” Murietta said grimly. “I’ve seen cases like that.”

“I just don’t understand why any of us would want to reveal the rest,” Girard said. “They must know that they wouldn’t be spared, either, when it comes to the final confrontation.”

“Perhaps they no longer care,” Murietta said. “Or perhaps they never really cared and just have reached the phase when they feel like actively doing something to provoke the confrontation. I just don’t know who would be mad enough to do _that_.”

“What about al-Muthlim’s gang?” Girard suggested. “Can the Crypt-Ticks be involved somehow?”

“I don’t think so,” Murietta replied slowly. “They might be homicidal from time to time, but they’re certainly not suicidal. Perhaps I should speak with the Bishop, too… just to make sure we’ve covered all bases.”

“You’d be dead in the moment you entered Crypt-Tick territory,” Girard warned him. “They don’t take intrusions to their domain kindly.”

“I don’t intend to go there,” Murietta grinned. “I’ll invite al-Muthlim to neutral territory… to have a little chat.”

“And you think he’ll come?” Girard asked doubtfully.

“I hope,” Murietta replied. “I can at least try.”

“Good luck,” Girard said sourly. “You’ll need it.”

“We _all_ are gonna need it, if we wanna survive this,” Murietta sighed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Reid found his interview with the designers… well, informative, if not directly interesting. He had never cared much for fashion trends, to be honest. The only things he wanted from any piece of clothing were that they would be warm and comfortable.

The designers, on the other hand, found _him_ interesting, it seemed… mostly for his looks. In the first hour, already three of them asked him outright if he would like to work for the house as a model. That surprised him a bit, as he never thought of himself as being physically attractive. People usually appreciated him for his brains – and rightly so. Not many people had ever come even close to his level.

He found this sudden interest for his physical attributes embarrassing, to be honest. Moralez, on the other hand, seemed to find his embarrassment cute, which made him blush all the time.

In spite of these highly embarrassing side effects, he found the interviews with Girard’s employees useful. They could tell him quite a few details about the personal lives of both Leblanc and Vukovic – there is nothing like workplace gossip to gather information – and one of them turned out to know another of the victims: Tom Leatherer, a highly successful young banker… the same one who had been killed with his wife and kids sleeping in the next room.

“He wasn’t one of Monsieur Girard’s usual financiers,” the resolute elderly secretary explained. “But he was one of the sponsors of Rémy’s jewellery exposition… I think his wife talked him into it. The young lady was very fond of designer brooches… only one-of-the-kind pieces, of course.”

Reid exchanged a look with Moralez; it was clear that they had just found another previously hidden connection between the victims. They thanked the well-informed lady and returned to Girard’s office to pick up Murietta.

“It’s strange how more and more victims turn out to have had connections to Monsieur Girard’s business,” Reid commented thoughtfully. “This is far beyond the possibility of being a coincidence. He is likely involved somehow… or someone does their best to make him _look_ involved. In either case, he’s having a problem, I’d say.”

“It might seem so at the moment,” Moralez agreed reluctantly; she didn’t like the direction this case was taking a bit, “but we’ve got no evidence against him.”

“No _forensic_ evidence, you mean,” Reid corrected. “And I’m not saying _he_ ’s the one killing all these people. But there’s a definite connection; one that we can’t ignore.”

Moralez knew that all too well. And while she did not believe that Victor Girard would be involved in the killings personally, she knew that if they did not find – and eliminate – the killer very soon, this case could be the end of the _Girard Fashion House_ … and probably the end of Murietta, too. At least the end of his long, successful career as a police detective; but he would probably have to flee Los Angeles entirely and seek refuge somewhere where nobody had heard of him yet.

And Murietta would not be the only one swept away by the waves. Everyone with close ties to him – or to Girard, for that matter – would have to flee or go undercover. There would be a great upheaval, a violent change in the balance of power in the underbelly of LA. With consequences one could not even begin to foretell. All that because _one_ crazed killer.

Only that this one was not your average serial killer. While they did not know his identity – not yet anyway – there could be no doubt about his _nature_. And should the BAU-team realize what kind of criminal they were dealing with, the consequences would be devastating. Certain government forces were well aware of the existence of things they officially denied… and they would not hesitate to initiate a first strike that would wipe out everyone and everything even remotely connected.

“I don’t know _how_ you intend to do this,” she murmured to Murietta, while they were waiting for Reid to return from the men’s room, “but you must act, soon. Things are getting out of hand.”

“I know,” Murietta replied unhappily. “Take him back to the station and let him work on the statistical analysis. If we’re right, he isn’t in any danger during daytime, surrounded by people. I’ll fetch him shortly before sunset to take him to the safe house if I can. If not, I might ask you to do so.”

“And where are _you_ going?” Moralez asked.

“I’m going to speak with The Preacher,” Murietta replied; then, with a humourless half-smile, he added. “He ought to know more about crazy people than the entire police station counted together.”

Moralez grinned back at him the same way. “That’s beyond doubt, I’d say. All right then, we’ll see each other on the station… or not, however the rest of your day might turn out.”

Murietta let immediately, and when Reid returned, he accepted the plan without argument. He wanted time to think anyway – and to consult with the others, especially with Garcia. So they drove back to the police station and spent the rest of the day with research and paperwork, glad to be able to escape into the virtual world for a while.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Murietta, in the meantime, was visiting a place where few people would go voluntarily, unless they absolutely had to.

It was an abandoned weapons depot of the military, in a little-known part of East LA; a large, ugly concrete building that should have been pulled down decades ago but somehow managed to avoid that fate. Of course, the connections of its current inhabitants played an important role in that.

Murietta waited with forced patience in front of the small steel door that served as the main entrance. He knew that hidden cameras watched the door day and night, and that one of The Preacher’s people always sat at the surveillance monitors. So it was only a matter of time till they would let him in. They had known him for a long time, after all.

And indeed, a few minutes later the door was opened by Duke Fontaine, The Preacher’s second: a big, balding man with cold, dead eyes and a thin smile that sent a cold shiver along Murietta’s spine. He was not easily frightened, but the things people whispered about the former CIA-agent were enough to make even him uncomfortable.

“Detective Murietta,” Fontaine drawled. “To what do we owe the honour?”

“I’m here on official business,” Murietta replied. “Is Augustus in?” He was one of the very few people who knew The Preacher’s real name.

“Sure,” Fontaine moved to the side to allow him in. “He was just about to leave, but I guess that can wait a little later. Come!”

He led the detective to the former mess hall of the facility that now served as their living room… well, sort of. It seemed like a strange mix of library, study and chapel, with a hint of surveillance center… every bit as strange as the people who currently inhabited.

The Preacher was a tall, big-boned black man with short-cropped, grey hair and sharp features. A Vietnam era veteran, he had belonged to a special unit whose members had undergone brain surgery, which eradicated their need to sleep, by cutting out a part of their brains. As a result, they had never slept again and ended up in mental wards upon their return, due to the massacres they had performed in Vietnam.

The following treatment itself and the drugs given to him in the ward gave The Preacher strange mental abilities. He could kill people through mental images, and had used this ‘gift’ to put his former team members out of their misery. Having turned to the Bible in the ward, he considered this salvation, not murder.

Needless to say that the FBI had seen it quite differently. They had hunted the man down, shot him and left him for dead, back in 1965. They had not counted on his self-regenerating powers… and on the intervention of one Brother Bernardus – a poor confused man who considered himself God’s emissary to all ‘lost souls”. Brother Bernardus had found The Preacher, whisked him away before the return of the FBI and cared for him until his recovery. In exchange, The Preacher took Brother Bernardus under his wings and protected him ever since… even from himself if necessary.

They had gathered a small group around themselves, consisting mostly from equally unstable individuals, with the possible exception of Angheliki, a scholarly Greek woman of regal carriage, who simply liked Brother Bernardus, and seemed to cope with their troubled past as well as it could be expected. However, the fact remained that most of them were insane in one aspect or another, so Murietta hoped that they could help him hunt down a crazed killer.

To his disappointment, both The Preacher and Fontaine shook their heads.

“We’ve heard about the killings, of course,” Fontaine said, “but if one of our people would be the killer, we’d know it.”

“What about Skin?” Murietta asked quietly, knowing that he was touching a very sensitive topic.

Skin was The Preacher’s progeny, the only other survivor of their unit, of whom The Preacher had hoped to join his case. But Skin had refused to ‘see the light’ and joined one of the nomadic packs instead, to the great regret of the others.

The Preacher shook his head again. “He’s not in town,” he said in that deep, rough voice of his. “Hasn’t been here for a long time.”

“Are you _really_ sure?” Murietta asked. “Think about it, Augustus; we can’t afford mistakes in this. You all know what’s at stake… for us all.”

“I _am_ sure,” The Preacher replied simply. “Were he here, I’d feel his presence. I could always sense him.”

With his abilities, a declaration like that practically counted as hard evidence, so Murietta did not push him any further.

“All right,” he said. “But if you hear something…”

“I’ll call you,” The Preacher promised solemnly.

The audience very obviously ended here, and Murietta found it better to leave as long as Malkav’s Childer were still in a cooperative mood. One did not put crazy people with Special Ops training under pressure… unless one had a death wish.

Another trail that had not led anywhere… well, at least he knew now that the Malkavians were not involved. Not as a group anyway; although the possibility that one of their people was involved somehow could not be refused out of hand. Not all of them accepted The Preacher’s authority, and in a city as huge as LA could even be some of them operating without his knowledge.

Murietta sighed. He’d been exposed to daylight for many long hours since that morning, and the hunger in him grew stronger. He decided to play safe tonight. Moralez could bring Reid back to the safe house without him.

He grabbed his cell phone and discussed the matter with his partner. Moralez promised him to be extra careful and wished him good hunting. He laughed and told her that it was exactly what he was planning.

He pocketed the phone again, and for a moment he stood still in the middle of the dark, silent street, allowing the hunter to emerge.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Jesús Ramirez folded his newspaper and set it aside to begin his next control round in the safe house. He did not need to check the clock to know it was time; like all nocturnal predators, he could feel the moving of the moon across the sky, even if he couldn’t see it. Like tonight. It was a new moon, and it was dark outside, very dark, despite the light pollution of the big city, in which he now lived. He liked these dark nights. They reminded him of the years he had spent alone in the jungle, trying to find his identity, with his master gone.

He had never been so free like in those years. Not that his current life would have been bad – but it was more complicated, full of duties and responsibilities. Like tonight, when he had to protect an outsider from one of his own. But that was all right. He might not be as boundlessly free as he had been in the jungle – but now he _belonged_. Salvador and Carlyle and Valeria and the others had become the family he never had, and that was worth everything.

He almost finished his round when his acute hearing picked up the soft, whimpering noises coming from the guest room. Jesús tensed in mid-movement, opening all his senses, sharpened by his years in the jungle, widely. He could not sense anyone else in Dr. Reid’s room. Perhaps the young man was having a nightmare. It would have been understandable. Like many people who tended to hang out online, Jesús _had_ seen Reid’s ordeal as displayed by his torturer on the internet, and was surprised that the young man seemed to have recovered so quickly.

But again, he had also heard that Reid had shot his torturer in the end. So perhaps there was more steel behind that seemingly fragile exterior of his than one would have thought.

Deciding to take a look at the guest he had been ordered to protect, Jesús slipped into Dr. Reid’s room, quietly like a ghost, mentally berating him for not having locked the door. The young man either did not take the potential danger seriously enough, or he did not care anymore. Which, again, would have been understandable enough… to a certain extent. But even if he was so eager to commit suicide with the help of an insane murderer, he was _not_ doing it on the watch of Jesús Ramirez!

Jesús allowed his eyes to adjust to the near-darkness of the room; like his entire kind, he did have night vision, but needed a moment to complete the switch. As soon as it happened, he could see the young man, sitting in the middle of the large bed, bony knees hugged to his chest, shivering with the memories of a recent nightmare. He seemed so lost and so hopeless that Jesús’ dead heart contracted painfully in his chest with the memory of similar feelings.

“Dr. Reid,” he said in a low, even voice he had once used to calm down frightened animals, “is something wrong?”

To his surprise, the young man was not startled by his voice. As if he had felt his presence. Drug addicts sometimes did, and Jesús already knew their guest was using. Dr. Reid could perhaps fool his boss and his colleagues, but not Jesús’ nose.

“What are you doing here?” Reid asked in a strangely monotone voice.

“I was making my rounds and heard noises from your room,” Jesús explained. “I wanted to see if you’re all right.”

“No,” Reid said blandly, “I’m _not_ all right. Perhaps never will again. But you don’t need to worry. It was just a nightmare.”

“Those can be bothersome,” Jesús agreed, knowing them from first-hand experience. “But shooting yourself up with drugs won’t help. Been there, done that – made everything only worse.”

Reid turned to him at that. Mere humans wouldn’t be able to make out his features in the darkness, but Jesús’ night eyes saw clearly the deep, dark circles around his expressive eyes, making them unnaturally large in his pale face.

“What makes you think I’m using drugs?” he asked. It wasn’t exactly a denial – just an evasive maneuver.

“I can smell them,” Jesús replied simply. “I don’t blame you for seeking escape, _hombre_ ; I know what happened to you. I also know what it’s like being tortured… but believe me, that shit isn’t gonna help you a bit.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Reid’s first reaction was to snap at him, for how could he _possibly_ know…? But the he remembered the scars he’d been glimpsed under the older man’s shirt and realised that yes, it _had_ to be true.

“I guess you _do_ know,” he answered tiredly. “And I know the drugs won’t help. It’s just… it’s just so hard to remember… And with my cursed memory, I’ll never have the chance to _forget_ , you know? It’s not _fair_.”

To his utter mortification, he felt the tears prickling in his eyes. He was just about having a breakdown in front of a complete stranger! He fought viciously for control, but in the end it was futile, and he knew it.

Ramirez sat down next to him on the bed and sighed.

“No, it ain’t fair,” he agreed. “Nobody should ever go through _that_ ; and those who’re unlucky enough to do, should be able to forget. I guess you got that perfect memory thing, eh?”

Reid nodded, his throat too tight to speak right now. The older man’s solid presence was strangely comforting, considering how hard he usually found it to trust people. Perhaps the fact that Ramirez didn’t ask any questions, that he seemed to know what it was like to be a torture victim, helped. That he, apparently, had gone through the same thing and came out of it stronger than before. Strength – that was what he radiated, with every movement that stretched the blue cotton shirt over the wide expanse of his broad back and heavy shoulders. Strength that was as solid as the earth itself, as the stems of ancient trees…

Suddenly, Reid felt the irresistible urge to lean against that strength; and in that precise moment, he lost it completely. Great, wrecking sobs shook his thin body, and the more he tried to hold back, the more they tore at him. As a strong, hard arm came around his shaking shoulders, at first he stiffened in panic; he never liked to be touched. But then he let himself being drawn against the older man’s broad chest, half-lying in Ramirez’ arm, while a large, rough hand was rubbing his back soothingly.

“Let it out, let it all out,” Ramirez murmured. “You’ve bottled it up inside your for way too long, _muchacho_. Everyone has a breaking point, and you’re way beyond yours, it seems. Let it go. I’ve got you.”

Reid couldn’t have stopped, even if he‘d wanted – but he didn’t, not really. As embarrassing as it was to cry like a baby in front of someone he had just met – he never cried in front of _anyone_ , period, and hardly ever even if he was alone – it was very liberating at the same time. He had no idea how long it took him to calm down… long, he guessed, as it had been a lot to let go. But he did calm down gradually, and just stayed as he was, nestled in the stranger’s arms, hiccupping a little.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I’ve never broken down quite this spectacularly – and certainly not in front of complete strangers.”

Ramirez shrugged. “Perhaps it was the time to do so. Perhaps the fact that I _am_ a stranger you’ll probably never meet again did help. You can go home and pretend it never happened, and there will be no one to remind you.”

“I dunno,” Reid said doubtfully. “I’m not really big at the denial thing.”

“Then admit yourself that you had a moment of weakness and accept a little help,” Ramirez answered. “There is no shame in that, no shame at all.”

“Have you…?” Reid trailed off, uncertain how to continue.

“Needed help?” Ramirez clarified. “Oh yeah, and how I needed it! Accepted it? Yeah, after the obligatory phase of manly stubbornness, I did, gratefully.”

He fell silent for a while, still rubbing shooting circles on Reid’s back, as if trying to decide whether he should tell more.

“I’ll tell you a story,” he finally said. “You see, I was born in Nicaragua, as the only son of a poor serving woman on the _hacienda_ of a very rich and cruel landowner, Don Christian de León. All people who worked for him were poor and superstitious… and deadly afraid of him, for often people who were called to his house, never returned. They were hardly more than slaves, labouring sixteen hours a day, and were not allowed to leave his lands. They believed in all sorts of strange, evil creatures, from the _chupacabra_ to _los vampiros_. So, when I started getting my permanent teeth and happened to sprout longer and sharper eye-teeth than most other kids, people said I was a monster.”

He grinned bitterly, showing said eye-teeth, which were indeed a little longer than the average, although not overly so.

“They attacked our hut, driven by fear,” he continued after a while. “When my mother tried to protect me, they beat her to death. Then they tried to prove what they called my ‘true nature’ by testing me with red hot iron,” he opened his shirt, revealing the scars on his chest. “Look at them. I know you’re curious. I’ve caught you watching earlier.”

“Do they still hurt?” Reid whispered.

Ramirez shook his head. “It was a long time ago. Needless to say, whatever they did to me, I didn’t turn into anything monstrous. So they brought me to Don Christian, complaining that my evil nature was too strong, even for the old methods. Don Christian promised them to keep me in his house – to keep a close eye on me, so that I won’t harm anyone.”

“Did he?” Reid asked.

Ramirez nodded grimly. “Oh, yes, he did. He made me his eternal servant; his personal slave. He broke my will and brainwashed me until I lost my identity completely; until I barely had an independent thought. I did terrible things for him; things I’d never have done on my own – and when he was finally killed by the _Sandinistas_ , back in nineteen-seventy-eight, and I was finally free, I knew they’d kill me, too. So I fled from the only place I knew and spent several years in the jungle, alone, living like an animal. Those years made me realize who and what I truly was.”

“How did you get here, then?” Reid asked. “You must still have been a child… or barely more.”

“Oh, I _was_ more,” Ramirez said. “I’m a lot older than I look – whether it’s a blessing or a curse, I don’t know. I came to LA alone. A court might say that I wasn’t fully responsible for my actions – nobody would stay sane, going through what I went through in the hands of my master, day to day, week to week, year to year – but that doesn’t change the fact that I, too, did hurt a lot of people. Here, in East-LA, is quite a large Nicaraguan community, and there is where I usually live. Those people don’t know who I once was; they’re poor and need help, and I do help them, wherever I can. That’s my atonement and I hope that will be my salvation one day.”

“What… Reid hesitated. “What has your master done to you?”

“What has the Spanish Inquisition done to its victims?” Ramirez asked back. “My master saw it his personal vocation to exorcise the evil from me… and he had an impressive collection of tools to use on me. Have you ever heard of the agony pear?”

Reid nodded, shivering.

“That was his favourite – but not his only tool, and not even the worst one. He _collected_ medieval torture instruments, and let me assure you, they _all_ were in the best working order.”

“Oh, God,” Reid whispered tonelessly. “How did you survive _that_?”

“I haven’t,” Ramirez said with a shrug. “I’ve been dead for a very long time.” He sighed and patted Reid’s back. “Go back to sleep, _muchacho_ , and have no fear. I’ll be here, watching over you. No other monster will enter this house on my watch.

With that dubious reassurance, he left Reid’s room, closing the door behind himself quietly.


	6. Part 06

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For visuals: Allison Maller is “played” by Peta Wilson (La Femme Nikita – she also has a similar background, although not entirely the same one). Ash Rivers is played by Stuart Townsend. They’re both canon RPG characters, as well as Ash’S bodyguard, Skelter, the Goldfarbs or Mohammed al-Muthlim.

**PART 06**

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
When Reid woke up in the next morning, Ramirez was gone – not just from his room but from the house entirely.

“He’s been on duty for twenty-eight hours; he needs to rest,” Moralez explained, dumping an alarming amount of food in front of the bleary-eyed young profiler. “Alison has taken over for him. Eat your breakfast; we have to leave within the hour.”

“Yes, Mom,” Reid murmured cheekily, navigating towards the coffee pot as if in some kind of trance. After the first large mug of coffee, his mind kicked into the usual high gear, and his interest for his surroundings was reawakened, too. “Who’s Allison?”

“I am,” a cool, measured female voice answered, and a young blonde woman – clad in black jeans and a black leather jacket – sauntered into the kitchen.

At first sight, she had a vague resemblance to JJ, both being blue-eyed, gentle-faced blondes, but unlike JJ’s, her eyes were cold like ice… measuring… attentive. The eyes of a professional killer – or a bodyguard, which was often the same.

They gave Reid the shivers.  
  
Moralez, for her part, did not seem to be intimidated at all. Plus, the two of them seemed to be, if not exactly friends, at least old acquaintances. She took over the introductions.

“Dr. Reid, this is Allison Maller, the protégée and bodyguard of one of our local tycoons,” she explained. Then she added with a wry grin. “Actually, she’s _your_ bodyguard for the next twenty-four hours. Allison, this is Dr. Spencer Reid.”

“My pleasure,” the ice-eyed blonde nodded, although it was glaringly obvious that she had no personal delight in making Reid’s acquaintance. Which was okay; this was just a job for her, after all, and Reid didn’t want to know her any better, either. As long as she did her job well, she can remain a mystery for him.

Nonetheless, he found he missed Ramirez already. At least the man was _friendly_ and seemed genuinely interested in his well-being.

He ate his breakfast obediently, although with slight difficulties. He usually just had coffee and a donut or something like that for breakfast, but Moralez apparently was one of those women who didn’t believe in small rations when feeding young men they found too skinny for their taste. Plus, he could feel the scrutinizing gaze of Allison all the time, and quite frankly, that gave him the creeps.

But finally he was done, having eaten as much as his stomach – not used to such heavy labour in the morning – could bear, and they left the safe house to get to the first meeting at the police station. Allison declared her intention to drive, and to Reid’s surprise, Moralez had no objections. The blonde bodyguard turned out to be an excellent driver, navigating them safely – and with impressive speed – trough the madness that was the morning traffic in East Los Angeles, and got them to their destination in record time, She didn’t enter the police station with them, however.

“I’ll be over there,” she pointed at a small café on the other side of the street. “You’ve got the number of my cell phone. Call me when you need me.”

Moralez nodded in agreement and dragged Reid into the police building.

“Allison isn’t comfortable in places like this,” she explained. “Too many bad memories, I guess.”

That made Reid stop and think. “Is she a reformed criminal?” he asked.

“Worse,” Moralez replied grimly. “She’s a victim of the system. She fled her home in Northern California at the age of fourteen to escape an abusive father and alcoholic mother, and - as it could be expected – she ended on the street. By the time she was fifteen, she was a professional hooker, working along Sunset and Western. At the age of nineteen, she was accused of murdering one of her clients. She didn’t do it, actually, but all evidence pointed at her, and she was given a life sentence. Then she was offered a deal by some dubious government agency: to become their assassin, in exchange for freedom – such as it was. She worked for them… well, I’m not really sure for how long, until the agency was dissolved for reasons still largely unknown. She’d have been killed – she knew too much about them – had Salvador Garcia not intervened on her behalf. He _does_ have considerable influence in the state government, you know.”

“Big money usually has,” Reid commented dryly.

Moralez nodded. “True. But Salvador is an okay guy. Not a saint, obviously – you can’t make _that_ much money and remain innocent – but at large, a decent one.”

“Which still makes having a bodyguard necessary,” Reid pointed out.

Moralez shrugged. “So does your current situation, and does that fact make you a bad person?”

“My situation isn’t exactly the same,” Reid protested.

“I didn’t say that,” Moralez replied. “I just wanted to point out that even decent people might need protection sometimes, and that it isn’t necessarily their fault. Come on now; let’s get in before Bronowsky bites my head off for being late.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The morning meeting, although a lengthy one, didn’t bring all too many new insights. Morgan and Detective Hoffs had called in during the night, providing some details about one of the still unidentified homeless victims, yet not enough to establish a positive identification. Three of the victims were still unknown, labelled as John Doe one through three.

Officer Wong had dug out sufficient data about Tom Leatherer – the banker who’d been killed with his family sleeping nearby. It seemed that the man was a big fan of Rémy Leblanc’s art; he’d even sponsored the artist’s exhibition in Madame D’Excavalier’s atelier.

The banker had also been associated with a rich and influential local businessman, Louis Fortier. Who not only owned the local branch of the Bank of Lyon, but also several real-estate agencies, restaurants and who knew what else.

Well, actually, Murietta knew, and the connection made him extremely nervous, as Louis Fortier was highest in the hierarchy of the Ventrue Anarch in Los Angeles. He was Minister of West-LA, just as Salvador Garcia was Minister of the eastern city. The crimes spread out to be connected to the highest circles of Kindred society, both Camarilla and Anarch, and that was _not_ good. If someone intended to reignite the Clan Wars, collateral damage among the _Kine_ could turn out a lot worse than previously assumed.

He suddenly found himself _hoping_ that they were “just” dealing with a serial killer gone mad. Who wanted to discredit Victor Girard and a few other Kindred businesspeople. Because an intended takeover would not only paint the streets of Los Angeles red; it could also endanger the Masquerade and expose them all to a government that wasn’t quite as clueless as some of them would have liked.

He used the coffee break to consult Sergeant Sanchez, who was, after all, of Salvador’s Blood and thus well-informed about everything going on in Anarch circles, even though he chose the Camarilla himself. Sanchez was _not_ happy about the news.

”The Prince needs to know about this,” he warned. “If someone’s really trying to take over, we’re all in dire peril.”

“I know,” Murietta sighed. “But I can’t just pay him an unannounced visit – especially not with the FBI breathing down my neck. _And_ babysitting their kid genius.”

“I’ll contact his office,” Sanchez promised. “Have you talked to Hawk?”

Murietta shook his head. “No, but I gave Four-Eyes all the data I had. Which is basically the same as talking to Hawk.”

“True,” Sanchez allowed. “he’s his right-hand man, after all. Good, then; I’ll instruct the Kindred cops to keep their eyes open… and to contact the Anarch gangs loyal to the Prince… or to Salvador. But I must tell you: I don’t like what this looks like. I don’t like it all.”

“Welcome to the club,” Murietta muttered. “And that’s why I’ll have to meet al-Muthlim face to face. Could you arrange it?”

Sanchez glared at him incredulously. “You want to contact the _Sabbat_?”

“No,” Murietta said. “I need to meet al-Muthlim, and him alone. He’s fairly moderate as the Sabbat go – and he’s a straightforward monster. If he’s behind this, he won’t hide it.”

“Perhaps not,” Sanchez said doubtfully. “He’ll just kill you and diablerize you.”

Murietta laughed, a little arrogantly. “Even a Sabbat Bishop has to try very hard to achieve that. So, can you arrange it?”

“I can,” Sanchez replied darkly. “I’m just not sure I should.”

“There’s no way around this, Miguel,” Murietta said tiredly. “We need to be sure.”

The sergeant gave in, albeit very reluctantly. “Very well. I’ll make an appointment in neutral territory.”

Murietta thanked him and returned to the bullpen to collect Reid. They had to do some more background work on the already identified wealthy victims before they’d leave to talk to potential witnesses.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
They’d been working on refining the victimology for about two hours when the call came in. Detective Turner answered it, listened to the person on the other end of the connection with increasing surprise, then hung up and looked at Murietta in mild shock.

“Guys, it seems we’ve gotten ourselves a survivor,” he said.

“What?!” Hotch dropped his files excited by the news. “Does this mean we finally have a lead? A description even? That’s what we’ve been waiting for all the time!”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Turner replied pessimistically.

“Why not?” Prentiss, who was working on mapping the recreational habits of some of the rich victims and comparing them with the notes of Agent Flores, their local FB-I liaison, asked.

Turner pulled a face. “Because the victim is Ash Rivers,” he replied simply, as if _that_ would explain anything.

Well, it perhaps did, as far as the local police was concerned, but the BAU-members could only exchange blank looks. Of course, Reid was the first to recognize the name.

“You mean the movie star?” he asked. “The one who’s reached fame with _Absolute Zero_?”

Turner nodded. “The very same. Apparently, he was attacked last night in his own club, the _Asp Hole_ but the killer was disturbed before he could do any harm and fled unidentified.”

“Wait a minute,” JJ, who’d once been a big fan of the decadent yet beautiful young superstar, said with a frown. “Hasn’t he overdosed on heroin a year or so ago?”

“Yep,” Turner replied. “He was found by his sponsor, Isaac Abrams, in the last minute, though. Got the best therapy money can buy; for money Isaac has enough. But it took him quite some time to reach some semblance of normalcy again – such as it is in these days.”

“It’s said that he suffered considerable brain damage from the overdose,” Murietta added. “So much that he can only focus – barely – on one thing at a time. There’s little hope he’d even have noticed his attacker, had the still working part of his brain been occupied with something else than his immediate surroundings.”

“Hasn’t he just had a spectacular comeback, though?” Reid asked. “I remember having seen him in the trailer of that new gay superhero movie, based on some comic books. _Rage_ , wasn’t it?”

Murietta nodded. “Yeah, and he was actually fantastic in it. Apparently, his acting skills are more or less undamaged – and the role fit him quite well. He even got hired for the sequel.”

“Which makes him an excellent match for the victimology,” Hotch pointed out. “Young, male, thin, dark-haired, successful, then betraying his success, and yet returning triumphantly... the ideal target for the unsub.”

Which was true, of course. In theory, that is. There were several aspects of this new attack, though, that made Murietta extremely uncomfortable.

One of those aspects was the fact that the attack had been unsuccessful. The killer had never failed before, and he hardly seemed the person who would give up easily. And yet he’d fled when someone had disturbed his scenario.

The other aspect was the person of the victim. This was the first time that one of their own kind had been targeted. So it had either been an attempted – and very amateurish – copy kill, or the killer wanted to show Kindred that they weren’t invincible, either.

Both possibilities made his skin crawl.

“Well,” Hotch said, “even though Mr Rivers might not tell us anything useful, we must speak with him,” he looked at Reid. “I’ll leave it to you; you won’t frighten him. Prentiss or I might.”

Reid nodded. He was the logical choice, and he knew it. The others had no objections, although JJ, who’d been hoping to get a chance to meet Ash Rivers in person, pouted a little.

“I’ll get an autographed picture for you,” Reid promised, following Moralez to the car.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
They gave Allison a call, and she came at once, looking as alert and efficient as if the long hours of waiting hadn’t mattered at all. But again, professional bodyguards were used to that sort of thing.

She drove them to Hollywood, where Ash Rivers’ club was situated, without speaking as much as a word. Her quiet, impersonal presence made Reid extremely uncomfortable, to tell the truth. Near the end of the trip she seemed to realize that, because she suddenly grinned at him.

“Do I creep you out?” she asked.

“A little,” Reid admitted. “Well, perhaps more than just a little.”

“Good,” she said, grinning even broader. “Imagine the way I might creep out those with bad intentions toward my charges.”

The thought that the creepy effect was intentional didn’t make Reid feel any better; on the contrary. He’d had his fair share of creeps lately, and had little desire to collect any new ones. He really, really missed the solid presence of Ramirez, despite all the shocking things the man had told him last night.

Plus, the craving for drugs was growing strong again. He’d managed to let his fingers from the most recent fix, because frankly, Ramirez had been right; when he used his common sense, he, too, knew that the stuff wasn’t helping. But now that he was on his own again, the craving hit him anew, full force.

He tried to occupy his overactive mind with trivial data concerning the murder cases. When he couldn’t do anything about the withdrawal symptoms, any distraction was welcome. He went through every oh-so-little aspect of the refined victimology methodically in his head, checking if they’d forgotten anything that might be important. When Allison stopped the car in front of the club, he had barely finished. Still, he had the distinct impression that they’d overlooked something important.

That, or the LA cops were hiding something from them.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The _Asp Hole_ turned out quite a surprise. Sure, it was a night club, but business seemed to be quite lively in the late afternoon already. It was a place for the upper class of Tinsel Town, full of the usual movie industry glory spread generously all across the rooms. It had a bar, a dance floor, a small stage for solo artists or small groups to perform, and several private _soirees_ , the exact purpose of whose better remained unknown.

The general style was that of a cabaret form the mid-twentieth century, just with a little more glitter. The waitresses were wearing multiple layers of knee-length gauze skirts in moss green or electric blue, with shoulder-free, skin-tight tops in a darker hue of the same colour, and were running around in such high-heeled pumps that it almost hurt to watch. They had identical, bee-hive hairdos, and long, intricate earrings jingling just about an inch above their shoulders.

An extremely thin, black-haired woman of possibly Greek origins – whom the others called Pandora and who was wearing the futuristic version of some Greek costume with an almost shocking amount of fake jewellery – greeted them as soon as they’d entered the club. She must have been the floor manager of the _Asp Hole_ , because she asked no questions, just led them upstairs to the private quarters of the owner.

It was a penthouse, matching the status (and the wealth) of a movie star, but furnished in an extravagant – and presumably expensive – Goth style, with its entire front wall replaced by tinted glass, framed by blood red, heavy velvet curtains. A counter of dark, polished wood separated the bar from the rest of the living room. The superstar apparently had a vexed interest in all sorts of alcoholic beverages, especially tequila, which made Reid wonder how heavy drinking would get along with drug therapy and how long it would take Ash Rivers to destroy his remaining brain cells, including those responsible for the body’s vegetative functions.

“Mael, the police is here,” the floor manager said to the blue-eyed blonde beyond the counter, who wore nothing but a translucent black shirt and a string of black pearls and looked all about seventeen… like a seventeen-year-old, who’d been on drugs for a very long time, that is. “Is Ash available?”

The blonde stared at them for a moment with those horribly empty eyes, then gestured towards the middle of the room, where – surprisingly enough – an enormous bath-tub stood. It was shaped like some strangely formed seashell and was large enough for at least four people. It was filled with scented water, the surface liberally strewn with deep red rose petals, and a young man, who must have been Ash Rivers, was floating in the water, only his face sticking out of it.

A stone-faced, bald-headed black man in a nondescript uniform – a bodyguard if Reid had ever seen one – was standing in the background. He ignored the visitors completely, but Reid knew they wouldn’t have a chance against him. His blank stare was the same often seen by Vietnam veterans or those returned from Iraq or Afghanistan – that of the soldier who’d seen too much.

Reid thought he understood now why the unsub had been unable to get to Ash Rivers. He was mistaken, but that wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t know what they were dealing with. None of the BAU-team and very few of the local police did.

The bodyguard exchanged short nods with Allison and visibly relaxed, which only made sense. Working in the same capacity for various members of the upper ten thousand would inevitably make them run into each other on occasion. Although Reid had an educated guess that Ash Rivers’ bodyguard was actually employed – and paid – by the young star’s patron. The rainbow press was full of stories about the powerful film mogul’s infatuation with his newest protégée, and how Ash had profited from the one-sided obsession of the mighty Isaac Abrams career-wise.

Watching the young actor emerge from his bath, Reid had to admit that said obsession was understandable to a certain degree. Despite his self-destructive tendencies, Ash Rivers was an extremely attractive man: about six feet tall, thin but very fit, with a pretty face and large, soulful hazel eyes that seemed even larger due to the dark shadows under them. With his wavy, collar-length hair, he strongly resembled the vampire Lestat from the movie ‘Queen of the Damned’. Reid assumed that the resemblance wasn’t mere coincidence, but part of the decadent image the young star had built up for himself.

Ash seemed not the least disturbed by his own nudity in the presence of four women, one of whom was a police detective. With a swaying gait, he retreated behind a folding screen, and when he came back, wearing a translucent, iridescent silk shirt and skin-tight black jeans, one could understand why Hollywood magazines celebrated him as the ‘Sexiest Man Alive’. If one was into the decadent, effeminate type, that is, Reid added in thought.

Of course, he couldn’t know that the ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ was, in fact, quite dead. Had been since his heroin overdose. If someone had no knowledge about the very existence of Kindred society, such mistakes were understandable, though.

In any case, Ash proved very cooperative, unlike most movie stars if interviewed by the police. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much he could tell, though. He’d apparently been sitting in his bedroom – a cave-like place kept in blacks and reds that would have caused Reid additional nightmares, had be been forced to sleep there – learning his lines for the next day, when he’d been attacked. His star rising again, he didn’t want to miss the chance to return into the spotlight for as long as possible, so he had to prepare himself very thoroughly for his scenes. Especially due to his reduced brain capacity, he explained with disarming honesty.

No, he hadn’t noticed the attacker entering the room, but he’d managed to cry out when grabbed from behind and thrown onto his own bed. Luckily for him, Skelter – he nodded in the vague direction of his bodyguard – heard his cry and came to his aid. The attacker had let go of him and fled… and that was about all Ash could tell them.

Moralez questioned the bodyguard, too, just to be thorough, but Skelter – and what kind of name was _that_ anyway? – couldn’t supply any more data. Yes, the attacker had been a young man; not very tall, but wiry. No, Skelter hadn’t seen his face. He must have been very strong, though, despite his slim frame, if he’d been able to throw Ash half across the room.

“Perhaps someone gone crazy on PCP?” Moralez guessed.

Reid shook his head. “No; this unsub is too organized for that. He follows a well-defined pattern in choosing his prey, and apparently observes his victims before he strikes. He must have known about Mr. Rivers’ difficulties with concentrating on more than one thing at the same time, or else he wouldn’t have intruded his home. It surprises me, though,” he added with a frown, “that he didn’t know of the presence of Mr. Skelter. He’s known to have taken great risks before, but never without a thorough survey of his chosen victim’s customs and surroundings.”

“He couldn’t know,” the bodyguard replied simply. “Mr. Abrams has only hired me for the job two days ago. I was originally supposed to keep the crazy fans from becoming too close and personal.”

“Well whatever the original reason might be, it was excellent timing,” Moralez said. “Without your interference…” she trailed off, but there was no need for her to finish. Everyone understood the ramifications… even Ash Rivers.

“In any case,” Reid said, “You need to remain alert. Serial killers like this one usually don’t leave the job unfinished.”

“You mean he’ll come back and try it again?” the bodyguard asked with a frown. Reid nodded.

“It’s like an obsession. He feels bereft of his chosen prey – bereft of _control_ , of the power he has … or he _believes_ to have – over his victim’s life. He’ll definitely try it again; although now, knowing of your presence, he might try a different approach… perhaps killing you first, to make the way free to his real target.”

“He’s welcome to try,” the big black man said dryly. “He couldn’t achieve much at the first time; he won’t succeed at the second one.”

Reid shook his head. “No, no, you don’t understand. He didn’t flee because you _scared_ him off. This is a highly intelligent and well-adapting criminal. You’ve disturbed his pattern by your mere presence; he’ll build a different pattern next time.”

“And you can’t tell us what _that_ might be,” Moralez said. It was clearly not a question.

Reid shrugged. “Afraid not,” he admitted. “We know the type of victim he chooses: young Caucasian males of slim build and dark hair; men who’re either very successful in their field of work or have once been but wasted their talents and chances. The unsub desperately envies the victims that fall into the first category – and punishes the second ones. No offence intended, but Mr. Rivers fits perfectly both categories, so he’s the ideal victim. You,” he added, looking at the bodyguard, “are merely an obstacle he intends to remove.”

“That might be more difficult than he thinks,” Skelter said with a dark smile that gave Reid the shivers… and not in a good way.

“Let’s hope so,” the young profiler replied. “Failure generally makes such criminals disorganized, and the more mistakes they make, the easier it will be for us to get him. They’re quite fanatic about success; failure throws them off-balance.”

“But while we’re waiting for him to make a mistake, Mr. Rivers will still remain in danger,” Moralez added warningly. “And so will you, Dr. Reid, to be honest.”

“I know,” Reid wasn’t playing down his own risks, but there was preciously little he could do about them. “I’m a trained FBI agent, though. I can take care of myself.”

Which was a lie, and he knew it. He hadn’t dealt all too well with the memories of torture in the hands of Tobias Hankel (or else he wouldn’t still be addicted to Dilaudid), and as a result, his reaction time was worse than ever. His mind was still working at its usual top capacity, but his body, weakened by the drugs and by way too little sleep, had begun to show signs of wear. In truth, he’d never felt so woefully inadequate in his entire life. Not even at the time he’d failed at his gun proficiency test.

He had the uncomfortable feeling that Detective Moralez had seen through his false bravery like through glass. Thankfully, she didn’t call him on it, though. She just gave him an exasperated look, muttering something about famous last words.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
In the meantime, Joaquin Murietta was having a somewhat… risky appointment in the club named _A Taste of LA_. Said establishment was situated in East-Los Angeles and operated as a combination of an European-style coffee house and as a travellers' aid station for Kindred newly arrived to the city. It also counted as _haven_ – neutral territory, where Kindred of different (and often hostile) factions could meet without bloodshed or restarting the Clan Wars.

Which had been the reason why Sergeant Sanchez had selected it as the place for a meeting between Murietta and the Sabbat Bishop of Los Angeles, Mohammed al-Muthlim. Theoretically, even the Sabbat respected the sanctuary of a haven; not the least because Salvador Garcia, the actual owner of the club, _had_ the means to enforce the neutrality of the place. Besides, al-Muthlim was almost… _moderate_ as Sabbat go.

But only as Sabbat go. So it was understandable that even Murietta, who was an old Kindred of Ancient Blood and accordingly strong, felt more than a little nervous about this encounter. After all, the personal history of al-Muthlim – who’d been a teenage drug dealer before finding to faith and becoming a fanatic Black Muslim – hadn’t been a very reassuring one, even before his Embrace.

The Kindred detective entered the club, which occupied the entire ground floor of the building, and nodded to the club manager, one of Salvador Garcia’s faithful ghouls, a permanently thirty-something ghoul by the name of Murray Goldfarb. Murietta liked to come to _A Taste of LA_ – the club had style, with its well-tended wooden floor, and the tables widely spaced to allow for private conversations. The lamps had matte glass screens, keeping the lights low… more than enough for Kindred eyesight, but putting the _Kine_ to a disadvantage.

None of this counted right now, of course, and Murietta allowed the older Goldfarb to guide him to his reserved table, at which al-Muthlim was already sitting. The Sabbat was a large, fierce-looking black man, clad in the usual garb from his days as a Black Muslim preacher: a long white robe and a small, embroidered round black cap on his head. He looked surprisingly – well, _normal_ for a Sabbat monster.

“Joaquin,” he nodded as some sort of greeting and accepted a large glass of _house special_ from Alexis Goldfarb, Murray’s nephew, who’d remained a beautiful seventeen-year-old for at least a century and a half.

“Mohammed,” Murietta replied in the same manner, choosing the same drink. He couldn’t leave the Sabbat the slightest advantage; that was a lesson he’d learned a long time ago.

“So,” al-Muthlim said. “You wanted to talk… which is unusual enough. Do we have a common problem?”

“Perhaps,” Murietta replied. “I assume you’ve heard about the serial killings going on among the _Kine_?”

“Why should I be worried about cattle?” the Sabbat asked, raising a sarcastic eyebrow.

“Because it’s no longer restricted to the _Kine_ ,” Murietta answered. “One of our own has been attacked, too.”

“Isaac’s decadent pet; I’ve heard about that,” al-Muthlim nodded, “I still don’t understand what you could possibly want from me.”

“I want to know if one of your people is doing the killings,” Murietta said directly. “We know it’s a Kindred; an old and strong one. We know he’s ruthless and cunning, even for one of us; probably out of control. So, is he one of yours?”

“And if he were?” the Sabbat asked.

“It wouldn’t make any difference,” Murietta replied. “Sabbat, Camarilla or Anarch – he needs to be hunted down and destroyed. He endangers the existence of us all. I know you don’t think much of the _Kine_ ; but Special Ops troops armed with flamethrowers could provide a deadly threat, even for you. Certain government circles know about our existence; they even tolerate us, as long as we keep a low profile, for reasons of their own. Someone on a killing spree, however, isn’t exactly low profile.”

“True,” al-Muthlim admitted. “Well, as far as I can tell, the killer isn’t one of ours. The packs don’t answer to me the way you answer to the Conclave, but I have my ways to know what they’re up to. I haven’t heard of any of us getting out of control lately. That is, not any more than usual,” he added wit a chilling smile. “I deem the usual subjects are know to you, though.”

Murietta nodded. “Of course. Well, thank you anyway. This eliminates _one_ possibility. We’ll have to look around in our own circles; and among the Anarch, too.”

“Good luck,” the Sabbat replied dryly. “Weren’t you guys so repressed, perhaps outbreaks like this wouldn’t happen, don’t you think?”

Murietta bit back a sharp answer. He didn’t need the advice of a Sabbat monster to know how to exist in the Dark; but he found it better not to taint the Bishop. Sabbat were, by their very nature, unpredictable and vengeful.

Not having anything else to discuss, al-Muthlim took his leave. Murray Goldfarb, whose deceivingly mild manners hid a sharp mind that could see through the most elaborate of Kindred schemes – which, among other things, had made him so eminently useful for Salvador Garcia – appeared at his elbow, noiselessly like a ghost.

“A most… intriguing discussion,” he commented.

“Do you think he was telling the truth?” Murietta asked. Due to his special sensitivity, Murray could serve as an excellent lie detector.

The ghoul shrugged. “The truth… as far as he knows it. He _does_ know a lot indeed – but that doesn’t mean he knows _everything_. Sabbat packs are a secretive lot, even among themselves. I don’t think you can rule out a Sabbat killer entirely.

“Great,” Murietta said sourly. “Just what I needed: even more confusion.”

Murray sighed. “Let’s hope your killer makes a mistake, and soon,” he said. “If things escalate, none of us will be safe; and the _Kine_ won’t care who was involved and who wasn’t. Scared people rarely do.”

Murietta knew that all too well. And the thought made him more concerned than he’d been for a very long time.


	7. Part 07

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mister Magic X is “played” by a very young Kyle Schmid. I readily admit that his performance was inspired by a short story of German author Thomas Mann, “Mario and the Magician”.
> 
> The Blount Sisters – although canon RPG characters of White Wolfe – were inspired in their looks and profession by German dancer twins Alice and Ellen Kessler.

**PART 07**

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Since the visit in the _Asp Hole_ hadn’t really moved things forward very much, Reid and Moralez returned to the police station. In the meantime, Hotch, Prentiss and JJ had managed to finish mapping the daily schedules of the wealthy victims (with the help of Garcia and Officer Wong), and though the three other homeless victims still remained unidentified, the picture seemed more detailed now.

All wealthy victims had either been connected to Victor Girard’s business somehow, or they had visited the _Vesuvius_ regularly. They had no connection among each other, so far, only indirectly: through Victor. Tom Leatherer and Rémy Leblanc were the only ones with actual contact to each other. The three identified homeless victims, Douglas Howser, Ethan Gold and Branco Vukovic, had all been connected to the Vesuvius, one way or another. Vukovic, an ex-model, had also had ties to the _Girard Fashion House_ in the past.

“That settles it,” Hotch summarized the results. “The _Vesuvius_ is definitely one of the unsub’s hunting grounds. We’ll have to take a close look at the guests tonight.”

“And at the personnel,” Reid added. “Theoretically, it could be one of those, too.”

“When does the evening programme start?” Prentiss asked. “We need to put on more… appropriate clothes.”

“Nine-thirty,” Detective Ioki replied. “We’re supposed to take our places around nine, though,” he looked at Reid. “I’ll fetch you at half past eight.”  
  
“Is there a dress code?” Hotch asked. Neither of them had brought evening dresses or tuxedos, and organizing them in such a short time could prove a problem.

Ioki shook his head. “Nah; as long as you’re moderately well-clad, you’ll be allowed in. It’s a popular place, but not _that_ classy. Any of _your_ suits will do. You, however,” he glanced at Reid again,” should try to select a shirt that looks less like a cleaning rag. I’ve got a certain standard where my dates are considered.”

The others laughed and Reid blushed furiously, realising that his sloppy dressing style might cause a minor problem. He did _not_ have any shirts in his overnight baggage that would match the style of a semi-elegant dance club better than the one he was currently wearing, and was at a loss what to do about it.

It was Moralez who’d finally mercy with him.

“I’ll bring you something proper to wear,” she promised. “My brother was half a head shorter than you are, but similarly built; _and_ he had a hang for fancy shirts. What colour do you prefer?”

“Spence looks best in moss green,” JJ answered instead of him.

Reid shot her an embarrassed look. “I don’t want to show off, JJ.”

“You’ll have to,” JJ pointed out. “You’re supposed to be on a _date_. People dress up for a date… well, _most_ people do.”

“I never did,” Reid murmured.

“When did you last have a date?” JJ asked. “I mean, save the one when you took me to that football match on your twenty-fourth birthday?”

Reid shrugged. He couldn’t remember. During college perhaps. Their work left very little time for private things, and he was naturally shy anyway.

“My thoughts exactly,” JJ nodded empathically; then she looked at Moralez. “Trust me: green _is_ his colour. Or earth brown, if nothing green is available. No blues, though; he likes them but they make him look like a sick kitten.”

Moralez grinned. “Duly noted.”

“Don’t I have anything to say in this?” Reid protested.

“No!” the two women said in unison, and the others laughed again. Lieutenant Bronowski called it a day, and they all returned to their respective accommodations to prepare themselves for a night in LA's half-world.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Detective Ioki came to the safe house to pick Reid up right on time. He really looked fetching in his black jeans and dark green silk shirt. Despite being almost fifty (albeit looking ten years younger), he was a handsome man. The best-looking date Reid had had for quite a while, actually – although, considering that he hadn’t _had_ a date since working for the BAU, that didn’t say much.

He almost regretted _not_ being interested in men at all. Almost.

Moralez had brought him a ruffled dress shirt from her late brother’s collection. Not a green one, but a golden brown one, which suited him extremely well. So well, in fact, that it almost made him uncomfortable. He’d been hit on by gay men before, and it had always embarrassed him very much. Not the fact that they’d been men, but the blatant interest for his body. He was used to his brain being admired, not his looks, which, in his own opinion, weren’t much to look at. Real men looked like Hotch and Morgan, not like him.

He only hoped that Ioki’s gorgeous presence would keep any unwanted interest at bay, despite being clad like the proverbial eye candy.

Ioki must have felt his discomfort, because he grinned at him like a loon.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I promise if anyone tries to molest you, I’ll break their noses. I’m entitled to be jealous on my date with a pretty boy half my age.”

That dubious promise only served to make Reid even more self-conscious, of course (even though he _knew_ that Ioki was straight and only joking), but that couldn’t be helped now. Allison brought forth the car – not the usual one the BAU-team had been given for daily use, but a black limousine with tinted glasses, presumably belonging to her true employer, the tycoon Salvador Garcia – and they got in, to arrive at the _Vesuvius_ in grand style.

The _Vesuvius_ turned out to be a rather… extravagant place. It was arranged like the _atrium_ of an ancient Roman villa, with the dance floor in the place of the fountain pond. It also served as the stage for whatever performance was about to take place. The low tables surrounding the stage were equipped with equally low couches instead of chairs, so that the patrons could choose whether they wanted to sit or lie down while watching the performance, like in Ancient Rome.

The waiters and waitresses were clad in ancient-fashioned tunics, and they were all young and very, very pretty. As the place only offered drinks and snacks, no warm food, lying down at the table didn’t prove to be much of a problem. Even so, both Hotch and Reid felt more than a little awkward and chose to sit on their couches.

“You really need to loosen up a little,” Detective Ioki teased, stretching out behind his ‘date’ and leaning casually on one elbow. “Nobody will buy the dating act if you just sit there like statues. Like _very_ embarrassed statues.”

“This is a little unusual,” Prentiss admitted, but followed Ioki’s lead. She’d lived in foreign lands long enough to adjust to local customs fairly quickly; even if the local custom only meant weird seating in a club. “Come on, Hotch, fake some interest at the very least!”

JJ, who’d made herself comfortable on the double couch with Agent Sandoval already, laughed at Hotch’s extremely tense expression.

“When in Rome, act like the Romans,” she quoted and accepted the ordered drink from the waiter. “Although, I must admit, drinking like this requires a little practice.”

Reid nodded absent-mindedly and looked around to check out the large posters hanging on the walls between the fake marble pillars. Surprisingly enough, they weren’t announcing any of the performances that had been promised in the programme. Instead, they all advertised the guest appearance of a certain Mister Magic X, who, if the pictures were any indication, must have been some sort of stage magician or illusionist. Or something similar. In any case, he was portrayed wearing a tuxedo and a tall hat, the trademark costume of all stage magicians.

“I thought the Blount Sisters would have a gig tonight,” Detective Ioki said to the stage manager, a handsome Filipino wearing the name tag Flores. “We’ve specifically come to see their performance.”

“Oh, they will perform all right,” the man replied; he had a husky voice and a soft, exotic accent. “But there had been an extension of the programme. Mr. Magic X rarely makes an appearance, so if he does, other artists are happy to make room for him Especially where advertising is concerned. He’s the best illusionist in the southern states and fills every theatre where he makes a gig. You’ll see… he’s positively eerie.

“Great,” Reid murmured. “Just what we needed, on top of everything else: a stage magician who can freak out his audience.”

“I’ve heard about him,” Agent Sandoval said, looking just a bit uncomfortable, which surprised them all, as he usually wasn’t the person to freak out easily. “His performances are… unusual, to say the best. I’m not sure which of his numbers he’s showing tonight, but please keep in mind: don’t offer your assistance when he asks for volunteers.”

“Why not?” Prentiss asked, suspicious now.

The local FBI agent shook his head. “I don’t want to worry you unnecessarily. Perhaps he’ll simply do magic tricks. But I was told that people with secrets – which includes all FBI personnel – shouldn’t volunteer for his performance.”

That was all he was willing to say, and shortly thereafter he excused himself for a moment to make a couple of phone calls. Reid was wondering whom he was about to call and why he refused to go into any detail. The fact made him even more nervous. He felt his hands shaking ever so slightly – from nerves or from the craving for Dilaudid, he wasn’t sure. In any case, it seemed safer to put his drink down onto the table.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Half an hour – and two more rounds of drinks – later the programme finally started. At first, the stage manager introduced all artists performing that night, starting with Velvet Vellour herself, the owner of the club, who was about to read from her own poems.

Against all expectations, she turned out a gifted poet and a very talented performer, with a beautiful, expressive voice. Her poems were fairly dark, full of existential angst and some underlying horror that couldn’t be caught directly, rather hinted at, and she read them in a somewhat understated manner that brought out the horror element much stronger than any overdramatising could have done. When she was finished, Reid found himself shivering, and could see that JJ didn’t feel any better.

Fortunately, the Blount Sisters provided a welcome distraction, showing a number the effect of which was the polar opposite of the poems’ darkness. They were twin women of some indeterminable age between twenty-five and forty, natural blonds, with smooth, beautiful, ageless faces, crystal blue eyes and legs so endless that the eye grew tired travelling their entire length. They had pearly white skin – a trait extremely rare in sunny California – and the acrobatic dance they performed with the aid of three drummers and a couple of high stools alone was simply amazing. Reid never thought human bodies could bend or twist that way without any visible effort… or without suffering any permanent damage.

They earned great applause, not least, he thought out of gratitude for loosening the atmosphere in the club. More drinks were ordered from all around the room, and for a while only the zigzagging of the waiters could be seen.

Finally, as the greatest attraction, came the performance of Mr. Magic X. Reid, something of an amateur magician himself, was full of expectations. He was fairly sure the illusionist wouldn’t lower himself to such simple tricks as sleigh-of-hand… not in such an elegant place. However, the actual performance filled him with profound discomfort.

For starters, he had to admit that the floor manager had been right: Mr. Magic X was an eerie sight to behold indeed. The man in the supremely elegant tuxedo, tall hat and long, creamy white silk scarf looked like a young boy – and an incredibly beautiful one. He seemed all but sixteen or seventeen, tall and finely-muscled for his age, with a flawless face, collar-length, wavy dark hair and large, soulful dark eyes.

That was the first impression anyway. Because if one looked into those eyes a bit longer, one saw icy dismay in them: a cold and nasty personality behind that angelic image. If anything, this artist definitely despised his audience.

“He’s older than he looks,” Reid commented softly, and Detective Ioki nodded in agreement.

“His file says he’s twenty-eight. He’s been on stage for almost ten years by now, and hasn’t changed a bit.”

“Then his file is a fake,” Reid said. “He must be _much_ older.”

“With _that_ face?” Ioki asked doubtfully.

“The face doesn’t matter,” Reid answered. “Plastic surgery can make you into anyone you want to be. The eyes are that which count; and those are the eyes of a much older man.”

“It isn’t just the face,” JJ murmured. “Look at his hands: they’re smooth and soft like those of a child. What kind of plastic surgery can provide _that_ effect?”

“The obscenely expensive kind, most likely,” Prentiss said with her usual dry humour. “I’d like to meet his surgeon; even though I probably wouldn’t be able to pay for as much as a simple consultation. I think we’ve chosen the wrong profession, JJ.”

“Sometimes it seems so,” JJ agreed, and they all laughed.

But their lighter mood didn’t last much longer. For now the performance began, and soon it turned into a weird horror trip. _Eerie_ wasn’t even beginning to describe it.

After a few _very_ elaborate illusionist tricks, including mysterious disappearances and the likes, the magician asked for volunteers from the audience _to demonstrate his mesmerising powers_ , as he’d phrased it. The FBI-agents and detectives remembered Agent Sandoval’s warning and didn’t volunteer, which was a very good thing, as they came to realise.

What the illusionist actually did would have put the hypnotist Cipolla from that Thomas Mann novella to shame. He practically hypnotised the clueless volunteers in front of the audience. Made them reveal their dirty little secrets publicly and made them do humiliating things; things they’d probably never done otherwise, not even in the privacy of their own bedrooms. Like fondling themselves, kissing someone from the audience or produce animal noises while rubbing themselves on the stool they were sitting on in the most shameless manner.

It was disgusting, Reid found, unworthy a real illusionist who took his art seriously. He said so… to Detective Ioki, in a low voice, as there was no reason to insult an apparently much-respected and widely-celebrated performer. Although, for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why people would find obscenities like this worth watching. And paying for.

Ioki shrugged. “It’s the same thing that makes porn, rape and torture vids or TV-shows like _Big Brother_ so popular,” he guessed. “They approach man’s basest, dirtiest instincts. Everybody states to despise them, but more people watch them than you’d believe… or would be comfortable with.”

“I still find it sick,” Reid declared, perhaps a little more forcefully than originally intended, because the illusionist caught his remark while releasing his last volunteer from the stage.

For a moment, he stood in the middle of the floor, his beautiful face icy cold and white like marble, cold fury in his wide eyes. Then he stormed out without a word and without waiting for the applause.

“Perhaps you should keep your voice low when criticising such a celebrated artist,” the floor manager said to Reid quietly. For some reason, he seemed nervous… almost frightened.

“Perhaps he should take better care _not_ to humiliate people publicly,” Reid answered with disgust. “Such an experience could well serve as a stressor for violent crimes – perhaps our serial killer _was_ one of your great artist’s so-called _volunteers_ , and now he’s killing young men who remind him of his sick sadist.”

“In which case Mr. Magic X should be careful about his own safety,” Ioki commented. “Sooner or later, the killer might find a way to him, too.”

“That’s unlikely,” the floor manager said. “The _Maestro_ can take care of himself… more so than most people, actually.”

“There’s always a first time for everything,” Hotch said. “We should speak with him and warn him.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” the floor manager said apologetically; the very real panic in his eyes made Reid thoughtful; apparently, the illusionist terrorised the personnel of every club in which he performed. “The _Maestro_ doesn’t grant audiences.”

Ioki tried to argue with the man, but Reid stopped him with a raised hand.

“No,” the young profiler said,” it’s useless. The _Maestro_ is apparently a self-centered, arrogant and sadistic bastard who considers other people as pawns in his great game of entertainment. He won’t listen, no matter what we’re about to say.”

“But he’s in mortal danger!” Ioki pointed out. “He could be killed, just like the others.”

“Perhaps that would save lots of lives,” Reid answered cynically. “Perhaps if the original stressor is eliminated, the killings would stop. It’s known to have happened before.”

“How often?” Prentiss asked quietly. “Come on, Reid, you’ve got statistics for just about everything. How likely _is_ it? How often _did_ it happen in the past?”

“Fifteen per cent of all known cases,” Reid admitted a little reluctantly. Hotch shook his head.

“Even if it were one hundred per cent, we couldn’t just lean back and let him be murdered,” he said. “Agent Sandoval, I’ll need a background check on this person. And I need to talk to him. If he refuses to grant a… how did you phrase it? … to _grant an audience_ , we’ll have to take him to the police station and question him there,” he looked at the obviously distressed floor manager. “You can tell your _Maestro_ that.”

With that, he released the man, but Reid was once again puzzled by the barely masked fear in Flores’ eyes.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Agent Sandoval said slowly, “but wasn’t it our intention to come here undercover, so that we can watch personnel and audience without raising any suspicions? It seems to me that we’ve just blown our cover, big time,” and he looked at Reid accusingly.

Reid gave him an indignant look… although he had to admit that their liaison to the local FBI branch was right. He _had_ given them away in his distress.

“Well, it doesn’t really matter now, does it?” he returned. “I mean, we’ve learned more than we’ve hoped by coming here. We know what the stressor that started the killings must have been. Or, to be more accurate, _who_ it was.”

“I wish it would be that easy,” Hotch sighed,” but I’m still not fully convinced about it. However, it seems likely that this illusionist has something to do with our case. Which is why we need that background check urgently. I think we ought to follow all the others threads, though, that have shown up so far. Starting with talking the owned and the personnel of this club.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
In the privacy of her _boudoir_ , which was furnished in a vaguely Egyptian style, unlike the rest of her club, Velvet Vellour looked every bit as exotic and mysterious as on stage. She was an African-American woman of great, albeit somewhat tragic beauty, seemingly in her late twenties. Her ID-card said she was twenty-six, but after a closer look, she seemed older.

She answered their questions willingly enough, admitting that yes, the already identified homeless victims had all worked for her establishment for short periods. She seemed especially taken by Ethan Gold, whom she called _the boy Paganini_ , and explained that Ethan’s skittering down into the drug scene was the greatest loss of the decade for the world of music.

“That a place like _Pittsburgh_ could have bread a rare gem like him is almost unbelievable,” she said with passion. “And that he must have ended like this, just because of some selfish little prick broke his heart is a scandal!”

“Excuse me, but according to the rainbow press it was _him_ who’d cheated on his boyfriend first,” Ioki commented. “Tried to hide the fact that he was gay in the first place, just to secure his career in the music branch.”

“So what if he did?” Velvet Vellour replied snippishly. “He was a great _artist_ , the greatest of his generation perhaps. His shitty little boyfriend should have been more understanding. Should have valued his good luck; that he was allowed to share that greatness.”

“Aren’t you judging by some pretty weird double standards here?” Reid asked with a frown.

Velvet Vellour gave him a blinding smile. “Sweetheart, you may be cute as a button – well, you actually _are_ – but you’ve no idea about what it means to be a true artist. Such people can’t be measured like common folk.”

“Does this fit for Mr. Magic X as well?” Hotch asked quietly.

For some reason, the question seemed to make Velvet Vellour very nervous – frightened almost. It was the same reaction her floor manager had shown just a little earlier.

“The _Maestro_ is a category unto himself,” she replied evasively. “We never interfere with his wishes.”

That was all she was willing to say, no matter how hard Hoffs tried to get more information out of her. After a while, the BAU team leader gave up the hopeless struggle and declared the interview finished.

“It’s no use,” he explained the others. “She’s obviously too frightened. Let’s hope Garcia can find us some detailed information about this infamous _Maestro_. I don’t know how and why, but he seems to have a much bigger influence on everyone here than a simple stage magician ought to have.”

“ _Nothing_ is simple about this man,” Reid muttered darkly. “Nothing at all.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
It was well beyond midnight when the unflappable Allison took Reid back to the safe house. It was dark and empty; Moralez had long gone and Ramirez still hadn’t returned. The prospect of spending the night alone with the cold-eyed ex-assassin freaked Reid out more than even the sadistic magician had, but there was nothing he could do about it.

He barricaded himself in his bedroom and booted up his laptop, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to sleep under such circumstances. He contacted Garcia, hoping that she’d be still awake, due to different time zones, and she didn’t disappoint him.

“What can I do for you, sweetcakes?” she asked cheerfully.

“I need whatever you can find out about a stage magician under the name of Mr. Magic X,” Reid hurriedly explained her his new theory about the sadistic illusionist having started the killings unknowingly. “We can’t be sure, of course, and Hotch’s right about one thing: the profile doesn’t actually point in the direction of such a stressor. Still, he matches the prey schema of the unsub, and who knows, perhaps learning more about him _will_ bring some light into this case.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Garcia promised, “and as you know, I can do a _lot_. Is it okay if I send the results directly to the police station, to this Officer Wong? She might be elderly, but she knows her stuff.”

“As long as you mail a copy to _my_ laptop,” he replied.

“Sure,” she said. “By the way, what’s Morgan doing? He hasn’t called me for ages; it’s not like him. Is he okay?” The fear in her voice was very obvious. Morgan was her best friend, and she was constantly worried about him.

“Of course,” Reid answered soothingly. “Bu you know what it’s like when one of us has to go undercover, right?”

She sighed. “No private calls, I know. Tell him I expect him to call as soon as he’s back.”

Reid promised to do so and signed off. He spent the rest of the night working on his laptop, trying to make a match between the established profile and his new theory concerning the illusionist but couldn’t bring the two aspects of the case in alignment.

Not yet, he told himself, grasping for every straw that promised a solution for this case. But he would. All he needed to do was to re-check every known fact another time. There _had_ to be something they were still overlooking, and the night would still last several hours.

Dawn was already breaking in the outside when he finally fell into a restless slumber over his still activated laptop. In his dreams, he was chased by Mr. Magic X through empty streets in a thick fog.


	8. Chapter 08

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** Gory details of vampire CPR ahead! Only for people with strong stomachs.

**PART 08**

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Murietta was the first to arrive to the morning meeting, filled with unease and the premonition of impending doom. Agent Sandoval had contacted him during the previous night – it wasn’t as if either of them would be sleeping at nighttime, which was the reason why they usually had the graveyard shift – and informed him about the insights won in the _Vesuvius_ … such as they’d been.

The news forced Murietta to go Hunting again. He didn’t exactly need it, not yet anyway, but he knew that day shift would be taxing for him, so it was better to face the day having himself under tight control. That left him less than three hours to rest before going to work, but that couldn’t be helped right now. Fortunately, he didn’t need much rest.

He was still reading through the night reports when Reid arrived. Murietta didn’t like the sight of him. The young man seemed exhausted and agitated at the same time, the dark rings around his haunted eyes a lot more prominent than usual, even for someone suffering from the Dark Eye Syndrome. But again, facing Mr. Magic X must have been an unpleasant experience for a sensitive man like him – and a lasting one.  
  
Before he could ask any questions (although he’d check with Allison later, of course), Officers Grant and Doyle from the night patrol arrived, leading in two homeless persons whom they’d presumably arrested for pretty theft. In truth, they were Morgan and Detective Hoffs, barely recognisable under the layers of dirt and stinking rugs they were wearing instead of halfway acceptable clothes.

“Gah, I’ve forgotten how unpleasant it can be to do undercover work,” Morgan complained, scrubbing his hands under the hot water repeatedly until his very skin began to hurt.

“And _I’m_ getting way too old for it,” Detective Hoffs practically collapsed in an armchair and accepted a mug of coffee from Reid. “Thank you, honey; you’re a life-saver.”

“So, has it brought something, at the very least?” Lieutenant Bronowski asked, coming in for his shift, shrugging off his light jacket.

Hoffs nodded. “We’ve managed to identify another one of the homeless victims. Nobody knows his true name, but he used to work in cabarets as a rubber man, under the stage name of _The Snake_.”

“Let me guess,” Lieutenant Bronowski said sourly. “He used to do gigs in the _Vesuvius_ , right?”

Hoffs gave him a surprised look. “Actually… yes, he did. Among other places. For a while, he shared performances with a famous illusionist named…”

“… Mr. Magic X,” Reid finished for her.

Hoffs’ eyes widened to the size of soup tureens. “Yes… how did you know _that_?”

Reid waved off her surprise. “An educated guess, nothing more. Why did he stop working with the _Maestro_ , though? I assumed that would be considered a great honour; a ticket to the upper class of artists.”

“Perhaps,” Hoffs said, “but apparently, _The Snake_ liked cocaine too much to care for his professional future. He was constantly high on stage, and in the end, he ruined their shared number completely.”

“I imagine the _Maestro_ reacted a little… impulsively,” Reid said.

“I don’t know,” Hoffs replied. “Apparently, he never told about it anything else than that he was thrown out on his ear.”

“I’m surprised he still _had_ an ear by then,” Reid murmured. “In any case, that could be a stressor, too.”

“Yeah, if the _Maestro_ had been the one who got killed,” Morgan said. “Obviously, he wasn’t, though.”

“It can still happen,” Reid said ominously.

“Possibly… but unlikely,” JJ said, arriving with the rest of the BAU team. The fact that they stayed in the same hotel made coordination really easy. “I can hardly imagine any humiliated customer – or ex co-worker, for that matter – who’d have the balls to attack that man. He’s positively creepy.”

“Have we learned anything about him?” Lieutenant Bronowski asked.

Reid nodded and handed out printouts of Garcia’s founds.

“Our technical analyst did some digging last night, and she came up with a complete family tree,” he replied. “It seems the _Maestro_ ’s real name is Christopher Houghton. His family of wealthy businessmen came to Los Angeles from Boston in the early 1820s, hoping for fewer business rivals down here. They used to be involved with financing Hollywood studios, movies and fashion houses and the likes, until they lost their interests to local tycoon Salvador Garcia in the 1940s. To Garcia senior, I assume, as the current one is in his early fifties.”

“ _Lost_ them?” Hotch asked with a frown. “How does one lose such extensive business interests at once?”

“The circumstances are still unclear… and will likely remain so,” Reid answered. “The only known fact is that after the death of their main business partner, a Hollywood magnate by the name of Don Sebastian Dominguez, the Houghtons have practically vanished from the playground. Until the _Maestro_ resurfaced a few years ago, that is, and made himself a name as a stage magician.”

Hotch took the printed-out document from Reid and quickly re-read the most important facts of this new information.

“Would I be wrong if I guessed that one of the fashion houses the Houghtons supported was the _Girard Fashion House_?” he asked.

Reid shook his head. “They’ve provided the founder of the Girard dynasty with the necessary money to start his business,” he explained.

“That would explain at least _some_ of the respect people are showing this arrogant bastard,” Prentiss said thoughtfully. “They might have lost their business interests, but perhaps they’ve managed to save most of the money in time. With enough money, you can buy just about everything. _Including_ respect.”

“ _Or_ a very good plastic surgeon,” JJ added, grinning.

Prentiss nodded. “That, too, yeah.”

“It also makes the _Maestro_ a very tempting target,” Hotch pointed out. “Not only is he highly successful, but also potentially very wealthy – two different aspects pointing into the same direction, I’d say.”

“It would also support Spence’s theory about him being the very thing that stressed out the unsub enough to start a killing spree,” JJ said, but Hotch shook his head.

“No, I don’t think so. I’m sorry, Reid, but the profile doesn’t point at a frustrated, humiliated murderer. This man, this… this _monster_ is playing with us. He wants to show us that he can do as he pleases, despite our presence.”

“He failed to kill Ash Rivers,” JJ reminded him.

Hotch nodded. “True. And that can mean two things: either he didn’t truly intend to kill Rivers, just wanted to confuse us with fake trails… or he’s becoming unstable. In which case we’ll have to count on new victims, murdered even more brutally than before.”

“What makes you think that?” Lieutenant Bronowski asked, clearly unhappy about the possibility.

“So far, the unsub has displayed the signs of a remarkably organised offender,” Prentiss explained. “If the Ash Rivers case is the first sign of a beginning devolution, though, things can become _really_ ugly.”

“What do you mean by devolution?” Hoffs asked.

“Devolution is a process by which an unsub begins to lose control, falling in a downward spiral,” Reid answered. “it’s the rapid change from an organised offender to a disorganised one. The person starts committing his crimes haphazardly or opportunistically, using weapons found at the scene and often leaving clues.”

“Like our killer leaving an eyewitness alive in the Rivers case,” Prentiss added. “In any case, there can’t be any doubt that this Houghton person is a key player in the unsub’s game, whatever that game actually is. He’s connected to the _Vesuvius_. He’s indirectly connected to the _Girard Fashion House_. He’s known one of the victims personally. I’d say we really need to speak with him.”

“Agent Sandoval is working on it,” JJ told her. “But apparently, it isn’t an easy task.”

“Tell him to work harder, then,” Hotch said curtly. “We’re about to face a disaster of epic proportions. What else is there?”

The other team members summarised the new insights won the previous evening and during the night. To tell the truth, it wasn’t much; only a few more details added to the personal background of the wealthy victims. After the meeting, the team split up again, each one returning with his local guide to his or her assigned area of search.

Before leaving the police station with Reid, Murietta excused himself for a moment to make a call… one he did not want to be tracked.

“It’s an informant who’s concerned about his own safety,” he said apologetically. “He could get in serious trouble if I called him on the police line.”

“Take your time,” Reid answered. “I was planning to check out that little café on the other side of the street anyway. I hadn’t had any breakfast today.”

“Allison can ruin one’s appetite,” Murietta agreed. “She’s one of the best, but she can creep one out. Go and get some sugar into your system. I’ll keep an eye on you through the shop window while I make that call.”

That Reid wouldn’t protest against being watched clearly showed how very concerned he was. He took his laptop with him to the café to re-check the info on the rich victim whose ex they were about to pay a visit and made himself comfortable with a double espresso and an enormous piece of cheesecake. Raising his sugar levels rapidly was the agenda of the moment, after all.

Standing in front of the shop window, Murietta fished his second cell phone – the one he only used during special emergencies – out of his pocket and hit speed dial #3.

“Schrecknet dot com,” the educated Boston accent of Four-Eyes said on the other end of the connection. “What can I do for you, Joaquin?”

“You need to check out our paper trails,” Murietta answered grimly. “That BAU hacker woman has found out far more than she should have.”

“How so?” Four-Eyes asked, not particularly concerned.

“I don’t know _how_ she did,” Murietta said. “Perhaps she is simply good. Or perhaps some of your pals had done lousy jobs. In any case, she managed to track Christopher back to Boston; _and_ she found his connection to Victor’s business. This is bad, Four-Eyes; this is _very_ bad. You ought to do something, and soon, or we’ll become the hunted instead of being the hunters in no time.”

“I see,” Four-Eyes said after a short pause. “I’ll do some damage control immediately. _Then_ I’ll find out who screwed up so colossally. Hawk won’t be pleased about this; and he’ll make his displeasure _very_ obvious.”

“Good,” Murietta replied. “Mistakes like this mustn’t happen again. Modern technology, as useful as it can be sometimes, can also create unexpected dangers for us. We need to stay one step ahead of the _Kine_ all the time if we want to keep our advantage.”

“Agreed,” Four-Eyes said. “I’ll keep you informed. Will you be in the safe house tonight?”

“Of course,” Murietta said. “I trust Jesús, but he might not be able to handle things on his own… should anything unexpected happen.”

He hung up, relieved a little, knowing that Four-Eyes and his Nosferatu hackers would take care of any potentially hazardous trails left behind in cyberspace. They were the best,

He pocketed the phone and entered the café to fetch Reid.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Their first task of the day was to question a certain Flavia Santucci. She’d been involved with Dennis Vincent, the late star of the Los Angeles Lakers, who’d left him as soon as she’d become pregnant. Neither had the man paid aliments for their now two-year-old daughter; who, as Vincent’s only child, would now inherit her murdered father’s millions.

That alone would have been a very inspiring motivation. But Ms Santucci was also connected to the local mob through her uncle, who had some influence among the _mafiosi_ controlling certain docks of the Los Angeles Harbour.

While it wasn’t likely, one couldn’t rule out the possibility by default that the Santucci clan had Vincent killed and created the fake serial killer case to cover their tracks. Personal honour was something that families like theirs took very seriously. Murietta didn’t believe it, though. The Santuccis were too brutal and too stupid to come up with such an elaborate scheme. But they couldn’t leave any oh-so-unlikely possibility unchecked.

So they visited Ms Santucci, who was living in her uncle’s big and posh mansion, guarded by Italian thugs who looked like the extras of some really cheap mafia movie. Their weapons seemed real enough, though, and they apparently found having police in the house most distressing.

Ms Santucci, on the other hand, was very open – not to mention very vocal – about her ex, treating them to passionate tirades that described the character of the late basketball star (or rather the complete lack thereof) in loving detail. But she couldn’t really tell them anything useful. Yes, Dennis had often visited both the _Asp Hole_ and the _Vesuvius_ – those were the places he’d picked up new girls, that bastard. Yes, he’d preferred custom-made suits from the _Girard Fashion House_ – he'd been _so_ vain! Yes, he’d kept his money in Mr. Leatherer’s bank, and hadn’t that been a _pain_ to get his accounts opened after his death! But that was about everything she knew; and besides, they hadn’t had any personal contact since little Fabiola’s birth, whom that _brigand_ of a father hadn’t even seen in two years!

However, she took a good, hard look at the victims’ photos, and unexpectedly picked out one of the so far unidentified homeless victims.

“I know this one,” she said. “This is Luigi Gascone. He used to play for the Lakers, too, even though he was not tall enough by far to be a front player. He was really good at organizing the others during the game, though. Until he got into a bar brawl, stone-drunk, and got his leg broken in several places.”

“I imagine that was the end of his career,” Murietta said.

She nodded. “He would never play basketball again. Uncle Vic was most displeased; he used to sponsor the little idiot.”

The grisly death of the young man – or that of her ex, for that matter – didn’t seem to bother her particularly. Perhaps it came with he status of being the niece of a mafia don; albeit of a minor one. It could seriously lessen a person’s sensibilities.

She couldn’t tell them anything else, so Murietta thanked her and they left. They visited the significant others of two other rich victims on that afternoon, and though they learned a great deal about the men, nothing seemed to push the case forward a bit.

“I think we’ve done enough for one day,” Murietta finally declared. “Let’s return to the safe house. We can analyse the date there and send our report to Bronowski via e-mail.”

Reid found that a very good idea. He was tired and had a raging headache from not having slept much in the previous night. He hoped some Dilaudid would take care of the problem; hadn’t touched the stuff for two days, but felt that he couldn’t face another night without it.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
They drove to the safe house and found both Moralez and Ramirez already there. Moralez was preparing dinner for Reid, assuming (and being absolutely right, of course) that he hadn’t eaten a hot meal for two days. Not since she’d stuffed him with breakfast the previous morning. Allison wasn’t known for her homemaking skills.

“I’ll come in a moment,” Reid promised. “I just need a bit of fresh air to get my head free again.” And to finally take some of the pills he’d kept in his trouser pocket all the time. “I’ll be in that little pavilion in the garden. Honestly, just five minutes, okay?”

Murietta wasn’t happy about the idea, but he finally gave in. After all, they were in the safe house, under tight surveillance. What could possibly happen? So he allowed Reid to have his five minutes – more so as he needed to inform the other two about the recent events.

“Five minutes,” he repeated warningly. “Then you come in, or I’ll come out and get you.”

Reid promised everything they wanted, just to be able to have five minutes for himself. Retreating to the small pavilion, he put a trembling hand into his pocket to find the phial with the white pills.

Murietta in the meantime told the others everything that had happened during the previous two days. They needed to stay up-to-date, especially as the BAU team believed that things might escalate in the near future.

“We need to stay alert,” he said. “Now that the attacks are extended to our own, everything is possible. This killer won’t stop, until we stop him.”

“I hope it won’t take much longer,” Moralez sighed. “There have been enough victims already. We can’t protect an entire city from a crazed killer. Speaking of which, Reid’s five minutes are over.”

“I’ll get him,” Murietta rose from his stool. “That kid is really asking for trouble.”

The terrible, piercing shriek of a dying man alerted them to the fact that something – or someone – had slipped through their line of defence. Ramirez was the first to react. With he unerring sense of direction all of his kind possessed, he run to the garden where Reid had stayed behind for a moment; Moralez and Murietta hot on his heels.

When the two detectives reached the garden, all they could see from the attacker was a fleeting shadow leaping high over the garden’s stone wall… at least half a metre above all defensive mechanisms like barbed wire and sensor grid.

“What are you waiting for?” Moralez cried. “Get the bastard!”

Murietta shook his head. “It’s too late. I won’t be able to catch up. Let’s see how Reid is doing; perhaps Jesús has seen something.”

They found Ramirez next to the small pavilion, kneeling in the dirt and holding the limp body of the young profiler in his arms. Reid’s throat was torn open, and he was bleeding profoundly.

“Do something!” Ramirez begged. “We can’t just let him die! Call for help!”

“No human doctor can help him now,” Murietta replied, seeing the wound. “We’ll have to lick the wound closed and give him some of our _Vitae_ to balance out the blood loss. _Then_ we’ll need Gloria.”

“Then do it!” Ramirez cried, while Moralez fell to her knees next to him and hurriedly pressed two fingers against the big vein in the young man’s open throat to stop the bleeding as well as she could.

“I can’t!” Murietta gritted his teeth in frustration. “My _Vitae_ is too strong; it would kill him in an instant. You must do it. You’re of Weak Blood; _perhaps_ he’ll be able to deal with yours.”

“No… nonono!” Ramirez protested in panic. “I… I can’t sire any Childer… it’s hard enough to keep a hold on myself on the best of days…”

“Of course you can do this,” Murietta replied calmly. “We’re not Embracing him; we’re just trying to save him – and it’s by no means sure that we’ll be able to actually do so. Don’t panic. I’ll talk you through it. First of all, we need to close that wound… if we can. You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

Ramirez nodded, trembling with fear. Vampire saliva could seal wounds, at least in theory – but Reid’s wound was _very_ severe. Still, they had to try. While Moralez still pressed the big vein, the two vampires began to clean the wound, lapping at the blood like some big, dark cats. The wounds began to close, but slowly, too slowly…

“Hurry up, guys,” Moralez urged them. “His heartbeat has slowed down dangerously.”

She tried not to think of the method the two men used to save Reid. It wasn’t the first time that she saw something like that – but certainly the goriest of all.

“He won’t manage on his own,” Murietta said to Ramirez. “He needs to have his natural self-healing kicked into gear again. You must give him your _Vitae_ now, or it will be too late!”

“But he won’t be able to swallow…” Ramirez protested.

“He won’t need to,” Murietta replied impatiently. “We’ll use Alain’s method. Slice your tongue with the tip of a fang, then kiss him and push your _Vitae_ down his throat. The pain will shock him awake. Hurry! I’ll call Gloria when it’s done.”

Ramirez seemed more than a little doubtful about the possible outcome but did as he’d been told. Moralez, despite her occasional earlier experiences with vampire practices, had to fight the sudden urge to get violently sick. This was definitely _not_ a sight for mortal eyes. But it wasn’t the time to throw up all over a dying man either, so that she pulled herself together with considerable effort.

“You think this will help?” she asked.

Murietta looked up from his own bloody work. “If not this, nothing can save him,” he replied, before turning back to cleaning the wound.

A moment later, Reid’s entire body went into convulsions, as if in terrible pain.


	9. Chapter 09

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I parted ways with Joss Whedon’s canon right before Angel & Co went into that stupid demon dimension. In the “Pathways” AU Angel has chosen a vastly different way… and I think he’s a much more content man… monster… whatever. ;)
> 
> “Pathways in the Dark” is my very own vampire crossover universe that keeps eating new fandoms at every new turn. You don’t really need to know the whole background to understand this story, though, since it’s basically about Spencer Reid and his experiences with the supernatural.

**PART 09**

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
He knew he was dying. He’d known it from the moment on the monster had attacked him. It had slashed his throat with something – he had no idea _what_ it had been – but was chased away by someone before he could have finished his attack… by Ramirez perhaps?

Yes, it had to be Ramirez. He recognized the accented voice, could hear the man’s despair, but he was too weak, too tired to answer. He knew he was bleeding to death; could feel the cold numbness spread from his toes and fingertips upwards, to his knees and elbows. Ultimately, it would reach his heart, and that would be the end of it. The end of all his sorrow and pain. It all would end, soon.

He did not fight it. It would have been futile anyway, and he wanted to die in peace. None of his ambitions and regrets did count in this final moment of clarity any longer. He was ready to let go. To let it all go.  
  
But suddenly, before the darkness could have engulfed him entirely, he had the feeling as if living fire had run through his veins, burning him from the inside. It hurt so much that he would have screamed in pain, now that he had the feeling returned to his limbs, if his throat had cooperated. He coughed weakly, wishing he had not done so, as if felt like sandpaper in his injured throat, and opened his eyes with great effort. He could see Ramirez’ worried face above him, and in the background the blurred image of the two detectives, Murietta talking to someone in rapid-fire Spanish on the phone, urgently and angrily.

“Help is on its way,” the detective finally told the others. “Gloria is already halfway here. We’re being lucky, I’d say.”

“I thought… phones… won’t work… here,” Reid whispered.

“We switched off the security system; we’re beyond that point anyway,” Murietta replied with a shrug. “You must not talk with that wounded throat of yours, though. The doctor’s on her way; she’ll patch you up in no time.”

Reid seriously doubted that – he knew how badly he had been wounded – but found it better not to argue. A few minutes later a car came to a sudden halt in front of the house, its tyres protecting against the rough treatment. Then he could hear hurried footsteps, and a female voice asking something in Spanish. Murietta answered her, and he and Ramirez withdrew to let the lady doctor work.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“Have you seen the attacker?” Murietta asked Ramirez, after Reid had been patched up, given a blood transfusion and several iron shots to counteract the blood loss. The Ventrue nodded grimly.

“I suggest that you both get yourselves some phosphorous guns from Fontaine; preferably of the biggest calibre he can find for you,” he replied. “It was Christopher, _hombre_! It was your own thrice-damned Sire!”

Murietta felt nauseous with fear and outrage. His Sire – the vampire who had made him to what he was now – was one of Ancient Blood: older and more powerful than either of them, and obviously had gone insane… which was not terribly surprising, considering the circumstances.

Christopher Houghton had been Embraced as a precocious thirteen-year-old, and looked, for all intents and purposes, about sixteen or seventeen. He was around two hundred now, and of a generation with powers most vampires could only dream about. _And_ he was on the loose, with practically nothing to fear, as very few even from his own kind could hope to face him… and live to tell the story.

Now the crimes began to make a twisted sense. Despite of his age and fearsome powers, Christopher was permanently trapped in a sixteen-year-old-looking body, and could not hope to achieve a position in the world of monetary wealth and influence vampires of his age were expected to possess. He was feared and respected by the undead, yes, but dismissed as a kid by the rest of the world. After two centuries, that _could_ become frustrating. Add the general instability of those Embraced at a very young age, and a disaster was almost pre-determined. There was a reason why the Camarilla strictly forbade the Embracing of children.

All this did not make Christopher’s killing spree acceptable, of course, and Murietta knew that – as the eldest of Christopher’s progeny – it was his duty to iron out his Sire’s horrible mistakes.

“I think I need to go to the Prince,” he said glumly. “Only he can order a Blood Hunt.”

“You’ll ask for a Blood Hunt against your Sire?” Ramirez asked in shock. As much as he had hated his own Sire all his life, the remains of the Blood Bond made him unable to even consider such a thing.

“He’s obviously mad,” Murietta pointed out. “He’s endangering the Masquerade… endangering the lives of us all.”

“Funny, I thought you guys were already dead,” Moralez commented cynically. Murietta gave her a quelling look.

“ _Undead_ ,” he corrected, “and we’d like to stay that way.”

“But even if the Prince _does_ call for a Blood Hunt, Reid will be in danger, as long as Christopher is running free,” Ramirez reminded him.

“I know,” Murietta said. “I’ll ask Hawk to keep an eye on him. Hawk’s the only one who has a chance against Christopher.”

“Yeah, but _will_ he do so?” Ramirez asked doubtfully. “He used to be the Enforcer of a Justicar; he’d want to go after Christopher, not to baby-sit the latest victim.”

“He won’t need to,” Murietta replied. “If he guards Reid, Christopher will come to him.”

“You mean he’ll return to finish the job?” Moralez asked, unable to suppress a shudder.

“Oh, yes,” Murietta said grimly. “Christopher never allowed his prey to escape.”

“And you think Hawk would be enough?” Ramirez seemed very worried. “If Christopher has truly lost control over his Beast, he might be able to tear even Hawk to pieces.”

“That’s why I’m going to the Prince,” Murietta said. “We’ll need the help of his Enforcers to deal with Christopher… especially that of the Slayer.”

“Yeah, but his get can’t go out into the sunlight, not even for a short time,” Ramirez warned.

“You think I don’t know that?” Murietta sighed. “Can you ask Salvador to dispose Allison to the safe house again? She’s a trained assassin; together, the two of you might provide our guest some protection.”

Ramirez nodded. “Will do. I’ll also ask Carlyle for a few more fighters from _La Hermandad_ to take up watching positions around the house. How’s Reid doing?”

“Better than expected,” Murietta said. “Gloria has repaired the blood vessels, and we’ve managed to initiate the healing, thanks to you. He won’t have more than an ugly scratch by tomorrow. Fortunately, the shock made him forget the exact details of the attack. We’ll suggest him that the killer missed… more or less.”

“Can’t you put that vampire mojo on him that would make him forget the whole thing?” Moralez asked. “Make him think he cut himself while shaving or something like that?”

Murietta shook his head. “He has an eidetic memory. I won’t tamper with _that_ , unless absolutely necessary. None of us can even begin to guess how the mind of a genius truly works. Disturbing its balance could be fatal.”

“Besides,” Ramirez added, “he could turn out a _resistor_ , in which case we’d reveal ourselves to him. I’d hate to kill him. None of this is his fault.”

“Would the Prince allow you to kill him at all?” Moralez asked. “I thought he didn’t condone of the killing of mortals.”

“Not without a _very_ good reason, he doesn’t,” Murietta said. “But in this case, even he might make an exception. If the BAU learned about our existence, that would endanger our kind well beyond the limits of LA.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Leaving Reid in the care of Moralez and Ramirez, Murietta called the house of the Prince and asked for an audience. He got the Prince’s personal ghoul, a beautiful, intelligent Creole woman to speak to, which was a lucky coincidence. Not only was Alexandra Moreau an able scientist, gifted – or cursed, depending on one’s point of view – with the Second Sight; she was also known to have the Prince’s ear, even more so than his progeny. Going through her always meant that the Prince would at least _listen_.

“He’ll be in within the hour,” she said. “You can come over if you want. I’ll tell him to expect you.”

Murietta thanked her and hung up. He only waited for the arrival of Allison and some more muscle from _La Hermandad_ , the strongest gang of Anarch vampires in East Los Angeles, before driving over to Downtown LA, where the Prince had his chief haven in a spacious mansion. Originally, it had been the fairly decadent villa of Russell Winters, a wealthy businessman… or, as the undead had known him, Cyrus, the self-styled Prince of the City. Since the current Prince had gotten rid of him and took over his haven and position, the house looked a lot more respectable, at least in Murietta’s opinion. All those creamy colours Cyrus had preferred really didn’t suit the ruler of LA’s undead society.

The detective was greeted at the gate by Riley Finn, the Prince’s youngest Childe: a tall, well-built, sandy-haired young man, who’d been a Special Ops agent in his mortal days and served as his Sire’s bodyguard since his Embrace. Murietta liked him a lot. Despite the particularly violent nature of the Line of Aurelius, which had usually bred vicious monsters in the past, Riley was a fairly moderate one as vampires went.

“Angel is waiting for you in the library,” he said. “Just go right in; I’ll park your car.”

Murietta followed the instructions and climbed the marble steps to the mansion’s heavy oakwood front door that was equipped with stained glass windows. It opened into a large foyer, which had been turned into a library, with hundreds of ancient, leather-bound tomes, many of them hand-written on parchment, resting on floor-to-ceiling shelves made of dark, polished wood. But that was to be expected. Several members of the Prince’s extended family were known scholars and researchers of the supernatural.

The master of the house was sitting in a large, old-fashioned leather armchair, nursing a glass of bloodwine. He was wearing black on black on black, like every time Murietta saw him, which made him look exceptionally pale, even for a vampire. He was a tall, powerful, ruggedly handsome man with spiky dark hair and a brooding expression.

“Detective Murietta, Sire,” Riley reported and withdrew to park the visitor’s car.

The Prince stood and looked at Murietta expectantly.

“It’s a rare thing that one of your line would pay me a visit,” he said in a light baritone that was quite surprising, coming from such a large body. “I assume it must be important.”

“It is, my Prince,” Murietta bowed respectfully and kissed his ring, the symbol of every Prince’s power. “One of us has lost control over his beast and is killing mortals… well, _savaging_ them would be perhaps the more accurate word.”

“How many victims?” the Prince asked, his dark eyes unreadable.

“Fourteen, so far,” Murietta replied. “We’ve managed to save the fifteenth one, just an hour ago… we _hope_. But he’d come back for his victim. And recently, he’d attacked one of us, too.”

The Prince nodded. “Ash Rivers. I’ve heard about it. Isaac was most upset. So, you know who’s responsible?”

“I do,” Murietta sighed. “It’s my own Sire, Christopher.”

“I see,” the Prince sucked in his lower lip, thinking. “I assume you want me to call a Blood Hunt on him?”

“We have no other choice,” Murietta replied grimly. “The FBI profilers could conclude from the crimes that he’s losing control rapidly – they call it _devolution_ – and what Jesús saw proves it. He doesn’t even care about disguising himself any longer. He attacks his victims in his true form, using his talons to slash their throats and disembowels them. It has to stop.”

“It has,” the Prince agreed, “but do we have the strength to stop a two-hundred-years-old monster of Ancient Blood on a rampage?”

“I don’t,” Murietta admitted, “not alone. I’ll ask Hawk’s help; and I hoped that your Enforcers might be able to help us as well. Especially the Sabbat Slayer.”

The Prince shook his head. “She’s still new to the Dark. Some stupid Sabbat fledgling won’t be a danger for her, but I won’t let her face someone of Christopher’s format just yet. I’ll send William, though; and if _that_ isn’t enough, I’ll go myself.”

“You shouldn’t take such risks,” Murietta protested, but the Prince waved his concerns off.

“Nonsense; this is _my_ city, and I won’t allow some rabid monster to destroy _my_ order. If he thinks the fact he’s sired my predecessor would help him, he’s mistaken,” he picked up a small bronze bell from the table and rang it.

A few minutes later Harmony Kendall, the blonde with the plastic smile from _Angel Investigations_ , the detective agency that served as the Prince’s cover business, hurried in.

“You called, my Prince?” she asked, notepad on the ready. She was the Prince’s foster Childe _and_ his personal secretary.

“Inform the Clan Primogens that we’ll have an emergency Conclave tomorrow at sunset,” the Prince instructed her. “We’ll meet in the Conclave room above the _Club D’Oblique_ , as usual. Tell them to bring their seconds as well. And I want the representatives of the independent Clans there, too. This will be a matter which is important for us all.”

Harmony noted everything and left to make the necessary phone calls.

“Should we tell the Sabbat?” Murietta asked. “I’ve got a tentative link to their Bishop.”

The Prince shook his head. “Could you take the risk of a Sabbat diablerist absorbing Christopher’s powers?” he asked grimly. “No; I want him executed as quickly and quietly as possible, so that we can create a convincing cover story for the police… and for those FBI types.”

“Actually, one of them have developed a theory that could be useful… even if the others disagree with him,” Murietta hurriedly explained Reid’s theory. After a moment of consideration, the Prince nodded.

“That could work,” he said. “Let’s do it so. And keep me informed, should anything new happen.”

Murietta promised that he would and left the mansion in ill-concealed relief. He might come from an old and powerful bloodline, but even so, he couldn’t compare himself with the former Scourge of Europe. The Order of Aurelius had practiced _vaulderie_ long before the birth of the Sabbat, which meant that their progeny possessed, in various degrees, the strengths of several Clans, including the Brujah, the Malkavians, the Nosferatu, the Tremere and even the Lasombra. It was a volatile mix and hard to control.

Granted, they also had to bear the weaknesses of those Clans – like the typical Lasombra inability to endure sunlight, even for the shortest periods – but the advantages far outweighed those weaknesses. There weren’t called the True Undead without a reason. And Angelus, the current Master of the reformed Order, had once been the most vicious monster of all.

Murietta and his associates – the old and well-respected supporters of the Camarilla – had elected him as the Prince of Los Angeles (after he’d been reformed) specifically because of his strength. Ruling the undead in a city that had been the last stronghold of the Anarch for two hundred years and keeping the Sabbat at bay was not something a weak Prince could do. Still, Angelus gave even _him_ the creeps sometimes.

Well, at least they were on the same side. For the time being anyway.

The undead detective shook off his discomfort with practiced ease – this wasn’t the first time he had to deal with the Prince – and climbed into his car again. It was time to see how Reid was doing.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The news that Reid had been attacked, despite the strict security measures, shocked the BAU-team deeply, of course. At first Hotch demanded that Reid be given back into their care, but Murietta wasn’t having any of it.

“He’s not in danger right now,” he said. “We tended to his wound, and by the time he’s slept out his shock, it won’t be more than an ugly scratch. We’ve tightened security around the house and organised twenty-four/seven surveillance. He’s still a lot safer there than he would be, say, in your hotel.”

“But the killer knows where he is!” Prentiss protested.

“And he’d lost his trail if Dr. Reid moved to a _hotel_?” Moralez asked. She was scared half out of her mind by last night’s events, but even so, she knew that if _they_ couldn’t keep Reid safe, nobody could.

“Yes, we’ve failed to keep him from being harmed,” Murietta admitted reluctantly. “But we’ve corrected the oversights now; and he’s on the mend. What else can you wish for?”

Hotch still wasn’t happy with the solution. But when he called Reid on his cell phone, and the young man assured him that he _wanted_ to stay in the almost-entirely-safe house, he grudgingly gave in. He couldn’t drag Reid out of there by force, after all.

Detective work and profiling continued in Reid’s absence, with every new detail being e-mailed to him for further analysis. For the first couple of days he couldn’t do much, though. Despite the transfusions and the iron shots, he was still weakened by the heavy blood loss and slept a lot.

His dreams were feverish, filled with battling monsters, with blood and fire. For some weird reason, he could only sleep a little better when Ramirez was with him. Realising this, Dr. Gloria Martinez, who checked on him each night, ordered Jesús to stay with him all the time, unless he needed to go out Hunting.

They’d apparently formed a rudimentary bond, she explained, a bond not unlike that between Sire and Childe, although Reid was not consciously aware of it. He just knew that with Ramirez, he felt _safe_ , and that was something he desperately needed right now.

“It will pass,” Gloria soothed the fretting Ramirez, who was, frankly, overwhelmed by this new, unexpected responsibility. “As soon as the traces of your _Vitae_ have left his system, he’ll be able to continue his life without your presence in it.”

“And yet,” Murietta added quietly, “from now on he’ll always carry a touch of the Wild within him, till the end of his life. I believe it will benefit him, though. It will make him stronger.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
When Reid woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare about being chased and torn apart by wild wolves, he had the uncomfortable feeling of being watched. He looked around but found Ramirez gone. Still, he could feel that he wasn’t alone in the room.

“Over here,” said a deep voice; it was low-pitched, but he had no doubt that it could shake walls if raised. Following the direction with his eyes, he spotted a large, bald-headed black man sitting in the armchair in the corner. The man melded with the shadows so completely that his eyes seemed to glow in the darkness like those of a cat… or of a wolf.

“Who… who are you?” Reid asked, hating the way his voice trembled.

“Your guardian for the night,” the man replied simply. “My name’s Hawk; and I’m used to this sort of jobs, so don’t worry. Up till a few years ago, I worked with a PI in Chicago, by the name of Spenser.”

“But you don’t anymore?” Reid asked. “Why?”

The man shrugged. “He’s dead. Not even I can protect someone from cancer. But I can protect _you_. Go back to sleep. You’ll need your strength tomorrow.”

There was so much power, such quiet authority in the stranger’s voice that Reid, who’d craved the strong guiding hand of a father all his life, obeyed involuntarily. Moralez, who’d been watching them from the doorframe, sighed.

“He still has a long way to go,” she said. “Jesús and Joaquin might have saved his life, but how is he supposed to deal with the memories?”

“He must _not_ remember!” the man called Hawk said forcefully. “The Masquerade…”

“Oh, come on, Hawk, spare me that bloodsucker nonsense!” Moralez interrupted him impatiently. “We’re in LA! People aren’t getting killed or turned left, right and centre, just because they’ve seen a vampire, and you know that. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, would I? At least not as a mortal. That’s not the way Angel works.”

“Angelus called me here to help protect the Masquerade,” Hawk declared darkly.

“Angel doesn’t give a shit about the Masquerade,” Moralez retorted. “He cares about us, mortals not getting killed and eaten by your kind… or by the demons who’ve infested the sewer systems during the centuries while vampires were fighting their Clan Wars. He called you here because Nosferatu are best suited to keep the demon population under control, and for no other reason. That you used to work for Justicar Petrodon was just an additional bonus. But if you start taking things into your own hands, he won’t hesitate to remove your piece from the chess board.”

“Because a mortal detective would know so much about the way the Prince of the City deals with things,” the Nosferatu commented sarcastically.

“You’d be surprised,” Moralez replied simply. “I talk to Riley Finn. He’s Angel’s prize Childe, and he used to be friends with my late brother, down in Belize. So make no mistake: I know things few other mortals do. And I have a link to the Prince’s ear.”

The Nosferatu gave her a feral grin that wasn’t the least amused. “You’re quite cheeky for a mere mortal,” he said.

Moralez’ jewel-like eyes grew cold like ice. “I might be just cattle in your eyes,” she answered, “but it would only take me a can of petrol and a match to destroy you. So I’d tread carefully if I were you.”

She whirled around and left, leaving a very annoyed vampire behind. Neither of them noticed the shadow lurking by the farthest window, listening to their every word.


	10. Part 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The persons mentioned in passim are names borrowed from the White Wolfe RPG but given a different background by me.

**PART 10**

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
On the next day Reid was allowed to get up and go to the police station, flanked by Allison and Murietta. Of the mysterious black man sitting in his bedroom he had only vague memories – so vague ones, in fact, that he wasn’t sure he hadn’t merely dreamed it.

The rest of the team welcomed him back with great relief. His wounded throat was healing very nicely. The scratch was still angry red, but the pretty Latino doctor had promised him that it would fade almost completely in a couple of weeks.

That couldn’t explain the all too vivid memories… nightmares… whatever of himself bleeding to death and wolves licking his blood, of course. But he accepted – for the time being anyway – that the shock was playing strange tricks with his memory. He knew he’d have to address this particular topic eventually, but he preferred _not_ to do it just now.  
  
He wasn’t allowed to do any field work yet, but he didn’t really mind it. He eerie feeling of being watched hadn’t subsided all the time; but even a maddened unsub on a downward spiral of devolution would think twice before attacking someone in the middle of a crowded police station. Or so he hoped.

The attack on him hadn’t moved the case forward a bit. They could refine the profile, for sure. It was now clear that the unsub saw the interference of the BAU-team as a personal affront and had picked him as the next target with the specific purpose to show them that he was one step ahead of them, by each turn. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

Morgan and Detective Hoffs had managed to identify the remaining two homeless victims in his absence, though. One of them was a former star lawyer of the law firm _Wolfram & Hart_, who’d ruined his career with too many drugs… officially, at least. Murietta strongly suspected that the young man had gone against the wishes of the senior partners of the firm in some ways and had been systematically destroyed as a result. _Wolfram & Hart_ were well-known for their ruthless methods and for the fact that they ate their own.

The other one was a failed rock star, whose career had started like a comet and ended like a falling star – all within two years. He was the unlucky counterpart of Ash Rivers, with the difference that he hadn’t had an Isaac Abrams to catch him when he fell. During his short fame he, too, had performed in both the _Vesuvius_ and the _Asp Hole_. And the young lawyer had represented business rivals of Victor Girard a few times… and lost spectacularly against Girard’s lawyer, Phillipe Navital.

Neither of them could be connected to Christopher Houghton aka Mr. Magic X in any way, though. Nor had Hotch managed to speak with the _Maestro_ , who seemed to have vanished from the face of Earth completely. Which was the only sensible thing to do if someone’s life had been declared forfeit by the Prince of the City, and he was now hunted by every vampire brave – or insane – enough to try killing him. But _that_ was something the mortals couldn’t know, of course.

“He might be a sadistic bastard, but he’s most likely not a fool,” Prentiss guessed. “Perhaps he’s gone underground. Hiding somewhere until we catch our killer.”

JJ shook her head thoughtfully. “The man didn’t make the impression of being easily frightened.”

“Not frightened,” Hotch said. “A _voyeur_ … someone who likes to watch a drama unfold from a secure balcony. I’m sure he’s hiding in plain sight and watching how we’re trying to find the unsub.”

“And what will he do when we’ve found the killer?” Detective Barritza asked.

“In that case we’ll have to keep close watch on the _killer_ ,” Murietta replied grimly. “If Dr. Reid is right with his theory, the _Maestro_ will try to take things into his own hands.”

He was playing a very delicate game here. He had to remind his mortal colleagues how very dangerous Christopher was, without giving away the fact that his Sire was the killer, not a potential target. He also had to support Reid’s theory against the profile the BAU-team had established, although he _knew_ that Reid was wrong. If – _when_ – Christopher’s corpse was found and identified, which could only be a matter of time, with a city-wide Blood Hunt going on for him, Reid’s theory was the only thing that could explain it.

It was a fortunate thing that old and powerful vampires didn’t combust into piles of as the way weak neonates did. They _needed_ Christopher’s corpse to give the whole serial killings – and their abrupt end – a convincing explanation. Even charred and mutilated, someone would be able to identify him. There were mortal associates for that kind of thing.

Of course, the clean-up teams would have to do extensive work in the meantime – Christopher couldn’t be identified as the actual murderer. Four-Eyes and his minions had already infiltrated the internal computer network of the FBI (although Garcia had made them sweat for it as no vampire had been sweating for a very long time), in order to change the DNA test results. Christopher had been careless – or mad – enough to leave his DNA behind on – or rather _within_ – several of his victims, and there were no trails allowed to lead to _anyone_ within the undead community. It was a matter of life and death for them… well, _unlife_ and Final Death, in their case.

They’d already found the perfect scapegoat whose DNA results would replace Christopher’s: a crazed junkie who’d already killed two people for his next fix and had long lost the ability to remember _anything_ that had happened further back than forty minutes, tops. Four-Eyes had placed (false) evidence that the man had worked in the _Vesuvius_ , cleaning the toilets, and before that had been the night shift janitor of the _Girard Fashion House_.

The guy was one of those wannabe Hollywood starlets who liked to hang around in clubs favoured by middle-class actors and sports stars but never got a chance themselves and turned to booze and drugs to deal with the disappointment. He didn’t match the profile in all aspects, but Murietta had already seen to that personnel from both the _Asp Hole_ and the _Vesuvius_ would “remember” him stalking well-known people – among them the wealthy victims – before those got killed.

Duke Fontaine was about to provide the right weapon to be found among the man’s meagre belongings, to prove that he _had_ the means to slash the throats of his victims and disembowel them. It was something akin a metal ring, that one could put on one’s hand; when squeezed, several vicious blades sprang forth that made very similar wounds to those caused by a vampire’s talons.

A Setite dealer would then slip the man an experimental drug, just before the local police would come to arrest him; a drug that would kill him after a period of delirious raving. Murietta didn’t like the idea to use the services of Setite drug barons – they were unreliable at the best of times – but in this case, they had to. He knew there would be a price to pay later, but that just couldn’t be helped.

It was almost frightening, actually, how easy it was to create a crazed killer – especially when the chosen person already had the basic tendencies to become one. It was a plan with a good chance to work, but Murietta had to keep his eye on all the myriad details that had to match for it to come together. And the only (mortal) person on whose help he could count was Moralez.

All this could only work, of course, if Hawk and the Prince’s enforcer – and whoever else took part of the Blood Hunt – found and destroyed Christopher before he could come back for Reid. Murietta was certain that his Sire _would_ come back. Christopher might have faked an attack on Ash Rivers, just to confuse the FBI (although Murietta wasn’t entirely sure about _that_ , either), but he absolutely wouldn’t allow Reid to slip through his fingers. He would try to finish the job, in spite of the hunters breathing down his neck.

Murietta had no doubt that Christopher already knew that a Blood Hunt had been called against him. Strong vampires of Ancient Blood could read most others of their kind, and the city-wide announcement had been made right after the emergency Conclave. He must already have run into someone who knew about it.

But the depressing truth was, he had very little to fear. Only a handful of the local undead could hope to fight him and survive the encounter. Hawk, of course. The Preacher. The Prince’s Enforcer. Duke Fontaine, perhaps – both he and the Preacher were Vietnam War veterans, after all, trained to fight dirty. Lady Abigail, the head of the local Tremere Chantry, most likely – she was a millennia-old, powerful Methuselah and could take out just about everyone. The Prince himself, doubtlessly. But that about summed it up.

Murietta himself wouldn’t stand a chance, despite being old and powerful for a vampire. He was Christopher’s Childe, and the ingrained loyalty towards his Sire would slow him down, whether he wanted or not. Being devoted to the Rules of the Camarilla did have its disadvantages sometimes.

Nonetheless, he’d paid a visit to the Malkavian-run weapons depot and got phosphorous guns from Duke Fontaine: for himself and Moralez, but also for Allison and Ramirez. It took a lot to kill a vampire. Traditional weapons, while they _could_ do some damage, weren’t enough for that. But fire was their natural enemy, just like sunlight, and a well-placed shot with a phosphorous gun was their best hope against Christopher. Trying to fight him in hand-to-hand struggle would have been suicidal. He might look fragile when in human disguise, but in his true form, he was near invincible.

He was also cruel and vengeful, not to mention a control freak, and Murietta knew _his_ life would be forfeit if they hadn’t managed to destroy his Sire. Christopher would learn – if he hadn’t learned already – that it was Murietta who’d asked for a blood Hunt to be called against him… and that wasn’t something a vampire would forgive his progeny. Especially not a maddened vampire on a killing spree.

Still, Murietta was only moderately worried about his own survival. Christopher would go after Reid first; he’d hold back the vengeance against his Childe until he’d gotten to his chosen prey. If they managed to protect Reid, Murietta himself wouldn’t be in any danger – not _yet_ anyway.

The detective sighed, picked up his cell phone and discretely retreated into one of the empty offices to find out how the Blood Hunt was going on.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
In a dark little lane near the safe house a predator was waiting with the patience only the undead could bring up for his prey.

He knew about the Blood Hunt called against him. He could literally _feel_ the hunters following the trail he’d left for them deliberately. He’d allow them to find him, eventually.

He’d be ready for them; give them the fight of their unlives. And he’d destroy them all, in the end. Compared with him, they were nothing: young, weak and stupid. Even that Anarch usurper that dared to call himself the Prince of the City.

The _Prince_! The monster that had once been a precocious thirteen-year-old made a derisive snort. This so-called Prince had been worse than the Sabbat whom he and his get were supposedly fighting in these days! This so-called Prince apparently believed that just because he and his Childer regularly dusted Sabbat fledglings, he really could rule the undead of Los Angeles.

That just because he’d left a trail of dead bodies behind him in good old Europe a century or so ago, he could compare himself with Christopher Houghton, the _Maestro_ of illusions and Domination. With him, who’d sired Princes while Angelus hadn’t been anything but a miserable outcast, cursed by the Ravnos, feeding on rats in the sewers!

Well, the arrogant upstart would learn who his true Elders were. And so would Joaquin and Victor and all their pathetic Childer. He’d destroy them all; teach them who gave them all eternal life – and that he had the power to take it them again.

Soon, very soon. But not yet. First, he had a hunt of his own to finish. He’d been disturbed at the first time. He’d tolerate no interruptions _this_ time! He’d barely tasted the blood of the mortal during the first attack, but the heady taste made his insides burn with craving. This time, he’d have it all.

They’d saved his prey by giving him some of their _Vitae_ – there couldn’t simply be any other way. Well, all the better – now his blood would have that slight touch of the Wild that would make it even more palatable.

The sun was about to set in a couple of minutes. The predator focused his willpower to fight back the Thirst. It was now only a matter of time. Soon, he would get what he craved… and gorge himself in it. Right now, all he had to do was to wait.  
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
When Allison and Ramirez brought Reid back to the safe house, it was late in the night already, and the entire neighbourhood wrapped in darkness. The proximity sensors – hurriedly readjusted after the recent attack – blinked into life as they reached the house, floating the garden and its immediate area with bright yellow light. Despite being blinded by the sudden flash of light, Reid could vaguely perceive the dark shapes guarding the house. His protectors had apparently called for reinforcements. Allison and Ramirez were both supposed to stay the night, too.

That should have made him feel safe – but it didn’t. He still had the feeling of being watched, and not only by his guardians. Murietta, who’d chosen to accompany them for the night, noticed his nervous fidgeting.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“He’s here,” Reid answered quietly.

Murietta didn’t need to ask who _he_ was. Even if Christopher hadn’t been bleeding himself while half-disembowelling Reid, Reid had been given Ramirez’ _Vitae_. He’d always be able to feel the presence of a strong, aggressive vampire. The effect might lessen in time, but would never completely vanish.

The detective activated his earpiece – he’d organized high-tech equipment as soon as they’d identified their killer, so that he’d be able to stay in contact with all his helpers at the same time.

“Pay attention,” he said. “He seems to be already here. Any sign of him yet?”

“None so far,” one of the guards answered. “Of course, he’d be able to conceal his presence from us. With you in the house…”

He trailed off, but Murietta nodded in understanding. The younger vampires of _La Hermandad_ would sense the presence of old and powerful Kindred – unfortunately, Murietta himself was also one of those, and from Christopher’s bloodline at that. His own presence would mask that of his Sire easily.

“I know,” he said. “Well, that can’t be helped. You’ll have to rely on your ears and eyes.”

“Let’s hope it will be enough,” the guard replied grimly. Considering Christopher’s reputation, his doubts wasn’t entirely unreasonable.

“It _has_ to be,” Murietta said. “Keep watch; I’ll contact the Hunters, too. This has to end, here and now.”

The guard acknowledged. Murietta let his headpiece on and sent a text message to Hawk and to the Prince’s Enforcers, calling them to the safe house. He was glad that Moralez had listened to him and went home. She couldn’t have helped, and worrying about another mortal would only have divided their forces. They all needed to focus on protecting Reid at the moment, and that was a difficult enough task.

He took the guns – rather big and bulky ones – from their hidden safe and loaded them with the clumsy-looking phosphorous bullets. Then he handed one of them Reid.

“Keep it ready all the time, just in case,” he said. “It’s heavier than the guns you’re used to, so you’ll have to use both hands. Aim at the middle of his chest; that should do the trick.”

Reid examined the weapon with interest. “I’ve never seen one of these before,” he said. He wasn’t exactly a weapons expert, but even he could see that these weren’t standard police models.

“And you won’t see one again, most likely,” Murietta replied. “They’re custom made, with special bullets. I’d prefer if you didn’t ask any questions I can’t answer, though. It would be better if you knew as little as possible of these things – for both of us.”

“I assume if I asked you whether you’re involved with Special Ops or anything, I wouldn’t get a straight answer anyway,” Reid said. It was not a question. He knew he would not.

“Or anything,” Murietta agreed noncommittally. “Let’s just hope we can get our killer tonight; then you can forget the whole thing as soon as possible.”

“I’m afraid it’s _not_ possible,” Reid answered with a nervous little smile. “Photographic memory, remember? I wouldn’t forget any of this, not even without the dreams.”

“Dreams?” Murietta echoed, suddenly very concerned again. “What dreams?”

Reid shrugged. “Nightmares, actually. Weird ones, of strange monsters and hunting wolves and other stuff like that. Fire and darkness, too. They make no sense whatsoever, but they’re not… pleasant.”

“I can imagine that,” Murietta murmured. “When did they start?”

“After I’d been attacked,” Reid answered with a shrug. “You think there might be a connection?”

Oh yes, there definitely _was_ a connection. Reid’s mind was clearly trying to deal with a trauma it could find no rational explanation for. Which meant that the suppressed memories – another self-defensive action of the mind – might resurface in the not-too-far future… and _then_ they’d have a problem.

“I’m sure it’s just your mind trying to cope with the shock,” Murietta said slowly. Reid gave him a doubtful look but no other answer.

They stayed awake for another hour or so, Reid too high-strung to sleep, the others dedicated to keep him safe, regardless of the costs. After midnight, however, stress and exhaustion finally caught up with Reid, and as little as he wanted to be alone, he had to retreat to his bedroom and try to at least rest a little.

“I’ll be outside, right under your window,” Ramirez promised. “And Allison’s gonna watch your door all night.”

Considering that the unsub had easily gotten around the defences last time, Reid didn’t find that promise entirely reassuring. But he didn’t want to hurt Ramirez’ feelings, either. After all, the man was doing his best – and he _had_ saved his life at the first attack. _How_ Ramirez had achieved _that_ was still something of a mystery for Reid, but he wasn’t going to question his good fortune.

He threw himself on top of the unmade bed, fully clothed. Somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to take off his clothes. The mere thought made him feel ridiculously vulnerable. As if his oversized sweater were some sort of armour that could have protected him from the knife… or whatever bladed weapon the unsub was actually using.

He rolled to his side, curled up in a foetal position, hugging himself in misery. He wanted this ongoing nightmare to end. He wanted to go home, to familiar territory, where he’d be safe. Where he could stay with his colleagues, instead of being separated and watched like some sort of prisoner… even if it was for his own protection. He wanted his _life_ back!

He screwed his eyes shut, trying to force back the tears of loneliness and frustration. He was a grown man, for God’s sake; well beyond the age when crying himself to sleep would be acceptable!

“Get a grip, Reid!” he chided himself. “Crying like a baby’s not gonna help!”

He wasn’t aware that he’d whispered these words audibly – at least for Kindred ears – in the silence of his room, and so he was suitably shocked when a low, seductive voice answered him.

“You’re so very right, little lamb,” the voice cooed. “Crying won’t help you. Nor will begging or screaming… or whatever else you might try. _Nothing_ ’s gonna help you escape from me.”

Reid jerked into an upright position at once, all thoughts of sleep gone. He looked around frantically, but all he could see were the vague outlines of furniture, barely visible in the stray light coming from the garden.

“Who are you?” he demanded; surprisingly enough, even for himself, he felt more angry than scared at the moment. He was fed up with the unsub’s morbid mind games. “Show yourself!”

“Oh, so the little lamb wants to see eye-to-eye with the big, bad wolf,” the low singsong voice purred. “How brave… or foolish. It doesn’t matter which, though. He deserves to know who the one to end his miserable little existence is.”

Something stirred in the shadows and forth came a slender creature, clad entirely in black. Only his flawless face gleamed ghostly white in the darkness, and his eyes were burning in an unholy silver light. Reid could still recognise him, of course. It was the _Maestro_ , aka Christopher Houghton, the sadistic and eerily beautiful young magician from the _Vesuvius_.

“I should have known,” Reid commented bitterly. “I could feel the evil in you from the first moment.”

“Good… evil… what quaint little labels,” the man… boy… creature shrugged. “Our little lamb is very perceptive. It’s surprising that he hasn’t made the right connection earlier… much earlier.”

“I just failed to see what reason you’d have to murder people,” Reid answered. “What could they possibly have – what can _I_ possibly have – that you don’t?”

“Oh, the little lamb wants to _know_?” the _Maestro_ asked conversationally. “Well, since he’s going to die a grisly death within moments, I think it’s safe enough to satisfy his curiosity,” for a moment, he seemed to shake off the manic air that had surrounded him, and his mask-like face gained some semblance of life. “Well, the simple truth is: they got the chance – _you’ve_ got the chance – to grow old. To make an impact, a career. To become someone important and name-worthy. Due to an unfortunate… _accident_ in my long-gone youth, I’ll never get that chance. I find that extremely unfair.”

There was a slight whiny undertone in his voice, like in that of a spoiled child, and Reid wondered how old he actually might be. What he’d look like without all that extensive plastic surgery that must have kept him so youthful-looking.

“So you go around and murder people, just to take away _their_ chance as well?” Reid asked, disgusted but not the least surprised. From the point of view of victimology, things began to make some twisted sense.

The _Maestro_ nodded nonchalantly. “Excellent reasoning. I see they don’t call our little lamb a genius for nothing. But that’s only one half of my… what do you profilers call it? Oh, yes, I remember. My _motivation_.”

“And the other half being?” Reid asked. He might have started talking to the killer to win some time, to give his protectors the chance to arrive, but now he was truly curious. It was a morbid fascination, but fascination nonetheless.

“Blood,” the _Maestro_ replied simply.

“Blood,” Reid repeated thoughtfully. “If I remember correctly, all victims were completely drained. Do you consider yourself some kind of vampire?”

“ _Some_ kind of vampire?” the _Maestro_ laughed quietly. It was a sound that made Reid shiver; one filled with cold amusement, madness and malevolence. “My dear little lamb, there’s only _one_ kind of vampire. The one that slaughters _your_ kind like you slaughter cattle, and gorges himself in your warm, mortal blood. As I’m gonna do with you in a moment.”

His tragically beautiful mask dropped abruptly… or, to be more accurate, it twisted into the visage of something ancient, powerful and profoundly evil – and very, very dead. Vicious, curved talons extended from the ends of his slim fingers, his hands… shrivelling somehow, until they looked like the claws of some carrion bird. His bloodless lips curled back, revealing long, wicked, razor-sharp canines. His silver eyes captured Reid’s, mesmerising him like a cobra would do with the bird it intended to eat, and Reid felt a strange numbness spread along his spine towards his limbs.

He knew that in a moment, he wouldn’t be able to move, even if his life depended on it – which, in fact, it _did_. But he was still in control of his arms, and the knowledge of certain death gifted a last, desperate flare of willpower upon him.

He patted around himself for the gun Murietta had given him. He doubted that he’d be able to aim properly, but he’d be damned if he let himself be slaughtered without putting up at least _some_ resistance. Like the stupid sheep this… this _monster_ thought him to be!

With a last, desperate effort, he grabbed the gun and fired it without any particular aim. It kicked back like a mule, throwing both him and his attacker backwards. The impact broke Reid from the _Maestro_ ’s thrall, but he couldn’t even think of a way to escape. All he could do was to stare at his attacker’s midsection, where an ugly, profoundly bleeding wound – with burnt outlines – was spreading rapidly. The custom made gun must have had one hell of a bullet in it.

But one phosphorous bullet wasn’t enough to finish off a vampire of Christopher’s age an powers. Howling in pain and wrath, he seemed to literally grow as he zeroed on on Reid, changing into something monstrous between a human-like creature and a demon wolf… and stuck half-way, unable to complete the transformation because of the bullet wound.

Still, even so, he was strong enough to tear his prey to pieces, and Reid knew that. As ridiculous as it sounded, he was about to be slaughtered by a clearly insane vampire; and the fact that his logical mind was telling him vampires didn’t exist was not helping at the moment.

The stench of the monster – even if the change was incomplete, in wolf form vampires did smell like he animal – numbed his senses, and the panic did the rest. He barely registered his door and window being broken through; barely heard the sound of repeated gunshots. The sharp, biting smell of phosphor couldn’t penetrate the stench of burnt, bleeding wolf that surrounded him like thick fog.

He welcomed the darkness when it took him.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“Is he hurt?” Ramirez asked in concern, ignoring the still smoking remains of Christopher.

Murietta checked Reid’s pulse and shook his head, relieved.

“No; he just passed out. Small wonder, really. I’m surprised that he managed to withstand Christopher’s Dominantion for as long as he did. My late Sire was infamous of his mesmerising powers.”

“He’s quite extraordinary for a mortal,” Hawk, who’d joined the ones guarding the house right after sunset, admitted. “What are you planning to do with him?”

“It depends on how much he’ll remember,” Murietta said thoughtfully. “I hope the shock was bad enough to make him forget certain details. I’d prefer _not_ to mess with a mind like this.”

“It would be wasteful to destroy it,” Hawk agreed. “However, if he _does_ remember…”

“… then it will be the decision of the Prince, what choices should be offered him,” Murietta interrupted.

The two vampires – both old, both powerful, both stubborn like Hell – glared at each other in determination, neither willing to back off as much as an inch. Ramirez was getting nervous. A fight between these two could have ended very ugly… in more blood and gore than anyone, even vampires, would want to face.

It could also divide the Camarilla dangerously. Hawk had been called to LA by the Prince himself, to establish a much-needed, strong Nosferatu presence in the city. Murietta, however, had been there since the beginning. As the Brood-brother of the former Prince and coming from an old and respected bloodline, he was highly respected himself, and had wide-spread support, even among the Anarch. As a lieutenant of _La Hermandad_ , Ramirez was well aware of that. If it came to sympathies, Murietta would beat the Nosferatu with his hands tied to his back.

Hawk knew that too, most likely, because he gave in… for the time being.

“Very well,” he said with a humourless grin that reminded Ramirez of a shark. “But I _will_ share my concerns with the Prince.”

“So will I,” Murietta replied. “We’ll see whom he’s going to listen.”

It wasn’t an empty threat, and they both knew it. Hawk might function as Angelus’ unofficial Justicar, but Murietta had the greater support with the undead population of LA – even among their mortal allies. Not even the Prince could ignore that fact. Which was the reason why the detective had a vote in the Conclave, even though Victor Girard was the Toreador Primogen. He was officially Victor’s second; in truth, _his_ word had more weight within the Clan.

Hawk left without a further word, moderately annoyed, but willing to wait before his next step. He was an old-fashioned vampire (Nosferatu generally were), a stickler to the rules, but he knew how to pick his fights. Right now, Murietta clearly had the better cards; but Hawk vindicated himself the right to take harsh measures, should things skitter out of control.

Murietta looked at Ramirez tiredly. “Tuck him in bed and stay with him,” he said. “He seems to feel the safest with you. I’ll send the others home.”

“You should go home, too,” Ramirez said, scoping up Reid in his arms. “Even you need rest; you’ve been up and running for four days by now.”

“Oh, I will rest all right,” Murietta answered, feeling the exhaustion spread through his entire body, now that the danger was no longer there. “Just not in my haven. I think I’ll need to soak up some mortal warmth after all this. I’ll call Bianca and see if I can stay with her tonight.”

“I’m sure she’ll let you,” Ramirez said. “That woman is a jewel. You’re very fortunate, you know.”

“I know,” Murietta replied with a tired smile.

Then he went to send Allison and the guards home before giving Moralez that phone call.


	11. Part 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The persons mentioned in passim are names borrowed from the White Wolfe RPG but given a different background by me.  
> I must admit that a certain turn of events in this chapter came completely unexpected, even for me. But it demanded to be written this way, and who am I to quarrel with the muse when she’s finally getting co-operative?

**PART 11**

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
In the next days the media of LA was full with the good news that the serial killer had been caught. The Nosferatu had created the perfect illusion of their chosen scapegoat being shot by two (Kindred) detectives of a different police station, shortly after he’d slaughtered the _Maestro_ aka Christopher Houghton. The results of the murderer’s DNA check had been changed in the databases. The DNA samples themselves had been replaced, thanks to a Kindred lab tech. All other physical evidence had been replaced to point to their faked killer.

The dead body of the scapegoat was found with the charred remains of Christopher, in the hiding place of the latter. Evidence of a fire starting spontaneously during their fight, by kicking over some candelabra, had been strategically placed. The patrol team of Officers Grant and Doyle gave testimony about having come to the detectives’ aid when they called in for reinforcements. The fire had supposedly been already burning by their arrival at the crime scene, and Christopher had already been brutally murdered.

The fire had been necessary, of course. In order to destroy any clues that could have revealed the use of phosphorous guns. _That_ would have lead to very uncomfortable questions, asked in the wrong places.  
  
Reid’s theory about Christopher’s sadistic games having been the stressor to launch the killing spree worked like a charm with the falsified evidence. Both the mortal and the undead population could breathe in relief again, although for different reasons. Figuratively speaking, of course, as vampires didn’t actually _need_ to breathe.

At first it seemed as if Reid had indeed forgotten the details of the second encounter with his almost-killer. After the night of the attack, he slept for twelve hours, his mind refusing to progress all the supernatural stuff it was never supposed to deal with, and shutting down his entire system until it recovered from the repeated shock.

When he woke up, Moralez and Murietta simply informed him that the unsub was dead and the _Maestro_ had been murdered by him; both facts that relieved him enormously. Plus, the events seemed to strengthen his theory, even though his colleagues were still having a hard time to believe it. But all forensic evidence pointed into the same reaction, and so Hotch reluctantly agreed to close the case.

“We’ll stay until the day after tomorrow to help finish the paperwork,” he decided, “but after that, we’ll go back to Quantico. The locals can deal with the aftermath without our help- Any objections?”

There were none. Everyone was glad to be done with he case; it had been a horrid one, even for them. Only Reid had to be left behind; as one of the two surviving victims, he was supposed to talk to the local profilers – and to a therapist.

The latter was the specific demand of the Kindred community, and they made sure that the therapist Agent Sandoval – a fairly new member of Clan Ventrue – organised for Reid would be one of their own kind. Dr. Takuya Shiraiwa was an unusually well-mannered and well-educated Japanese Brujah. He mostly worked as a haematologist – as the leader of the _Barofsky Institute of Haematology_ , founded by his own Sire – but he had a degree in psychology as well. Granted, he usually therapied troubled neonates who had a hard time to get a grip on their new existence, but he was very strong at Dominance, and if anyone, he could find out whether Reid had any memories of Christopher’s last visit or not.

At first Reid was decidedly unhappy about the necessity of going to a shrink. But after the second or third visit he found that he liked Dr. Shiraiwa. The Brujah doctor was quiet, reserved and intensely focused, which matched Reid’s own, very private nature. Plus, he didn’t share the annoying custom of most therapists to answer every question with a question of his own.

Instead of doing so, he was a good listener, and soon Reid found himself talking not only about his nightmares and his Dilaudid problem, but also about his childhood memories, which he rarely shared with anyone. Of course, Dr. Shiraiwa’s strong gift of Dominance played a not-so-small role in his openness, but Reid couldn’t know that. He came to realise, though, that talking about those things – especially to a therapist whom he most likely wouldn’t see again – helped a lot.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“Will he even be able to remember what happened to him?” Murietta asked Dr. Shiraiwa, after the case had been wrapped, the paperwork finished and Reid was sitting on the plane, on his way back to Quantico.

The Brujah shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. Were he the average mortal, I’d say no. But with a mind like his… I really don’t have a clue. I’ve tried to manipulate his suppressed memories as far as I dared… but that wasn’t much. The mind of a genius is as vulnerable as it is unique. One cannot be careful enough with it.”

“My fears exactly,” Murietta sighed. “What do you think; would he be able to deal with a life in darkness, should we be forced to Embrace him?”

The Brujah thought about it for a while. “It depends on the Clan, I suppose,” he finally said. “You’d be out of the question, I’m afraid. He’s not Toreador material; and besides, your _Vitae_ , the Beast of your bloodline would be too strong, too violent for him. He wouldn’t make a good Brujah, either – he’d need more structure in his unlife.”

“Ventrue, then,” Murietta commented. “Actually, that makes excellent sense. More so as he already had his taste of Jesús’ _Vitae_. Ventrue blood would seem familiar to him; easier to accept than anything else.”

“You can’t have Jesús Embrace him, should it ever come to that at all,” the Brujah warned him. “The man is barely capable to deal with his own unlife without a regnant; never in a thousand years would he manage to take care of a Childe. That’s the problem with the idiotic Ventrue custom of Blood Bonds: it creates broken-willed thralls.”

“I know,” Murietta said. “I was thinking of Phillipe Navital, actually. He’s old, experienced, highly educated and well-mannered… _and_ he is a lawyer. He’d be able to guide the genius boy properly, as they speak the same language.”

“That’s a good idea,” the Brujah allowed. “I’d still feel better if he didn’t remember, though. I’m not sure how his mind would deal with the Change. It might drive him mad; and then we’d have to destroy him – which would really be a waste.”

“I agree,” Murietta said. “Let’s hope he won’t remember, then.”

“That would be the best,” the Brujah agreed. “You ought to speak with the Prince, though, just in case he will. You’re gonna need a plan for every possibility.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The return to Quantico was a great relief for Reid. The familiar surroundings, the familiar routine at work, and the closeness of his colleagues… all that helped him to find his inner balance again. They didn’t have any new cases at the moment, and he used the time to work on his BA thesis and to eliminate some of the long overdue paperwork that had piled up on his desk during the weeks previous to the LA case. He hoped he’d be able to squeeze in a short visit by his mother before the next crisis would hit – he hadn’t seen her for quite some time.

During the day, he managed to keep going well enough. The cravings usually hit after sunset, and to his bewilderment, Dilaudid didn’t seem to help any longer. On the one hand, that was a good thing; he no longer needed to find barely legal ways to get his hands on the stuff. On the other hand, it was really bad, because he had no idea what he could do against the cravings.

And if _that_ hadn’t been bad enough, the nightmares returned, too. Bad dreams were something he’d been familiar with since his troubled childhood, but _this_ was something else. He didn’t know why, but he could feel it in his very bones – and that frightened him, because there was a distinct possibility that he might be losing his mind.

He thought of going to a therapist, but some hidden instinct warned him not to do so. He also had the feeling, although he couldn’t explain it, that a random therapist wouldn’t be able to deal with this… whatever _this_ truly was. He began to miss Dr. Shiraiwa in earnest.

Had Gideon still been with them, he might have told him about the dreams… about the cravings… about everything. Gideon had been his mentor, and even though their relationship had grown less and less personal in the recent years, Reid knew he could trust the man unconditionally.

But Gideon was gone, didn’t even answer his e-mails, and Hotch was always so distant, and the others… they had enough problems of their own. Especially JJ, who was still working through the aftershocks of the Tobias Henkel case. He couldn’t dump his problems in the lap of the others; not to mention that they wouldn’t be able to help him anyway.

But he desperately needed to talk to someone who at least _might_ understand, and so he called Elle. They’d kept sporadic contact even after Elle had left the BAU; she had even visited him in the hospital after the Henkel case, and they’d had long discussions about their respective lives and fears. They also had the common curse of being addicts, Elle to alcohol, Reid to Dilaudid. And even though Elle had been dry for a while by now – or perhaps _exactly_ because she’d managed to wrestle herself free from the bottle – she could understand the cravings more than anyone else.

In the hospital, before she’d leave to avoid meeting the rest of the team, she’d promised to come, whenever Reid needed her help. Reid was calling her on that promise now. He’d reached the point from where he couldn’t get away alone.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
He knew Elle would be as good as her promise, and she was. She took the first available plane from Brooklyn and arrived early on the next day. She looked radiant, Reid found; apparently, being back working for Brooklyn PS had done her a wealth of good.

He told her so, and she laughed.

“Well, yes, spending a lot of time outside in the fresh air tends to put the colour back in your cheeks,” she said. “But they’ve promised me I’d make Detective, soon, and can return to a lovely desk job. Ain’t that great?”

“Actually, I’ve come to appreciate paperwork,” Reid admitted. “True, it can be boring; but at least it doesn’t cause you any nightmares.”

“Yours doesn’t? What a lucky boy you are!” Elle joked, but seeing his pained expression, she immediately became serious again. “All right, Spencer; you’ve called me for a reason. So tell me, what’s wrong with you?”

“The problem is… I’m not entirely sure,” Reid answered slowly. “I mean, I’m used to nightmares. I’ve had them all my life. But I always knew where they came from. They always had a solid basis in reality. I could analyse them, understand them, interpret them…”

“But no longer?” Elle asked when he trailed off.

He shook his head. “All I know – and I don’t even understand _how_ I know it – is that they have something to do with our recent case… those serial killings in Los Angeles.”

“I see,” Elle said thoughtfully, her smooth brow furrowed in concern. “Tell me about the case.”

Usually, BAU-members didn’t discuss their cases with outsiders. Not even with police officers or close friends. But Elle was more than just a police officer or a good friend – she’d once been one of them. So Reid told her all about the case: the grisly murders, the horribly maimed bodies, the danger he himself had been in, the desperate efforts of the LAPD detectives to keep him safe… and their failure to do so.

He spoke about Ramirez, too. About the man’s terrible past. About the steady support he could give; and how he’d saved his life.

“Sometimes I really miss him,” he admitted, “the way I used to miss my Dad when I was a child. It’s stupid, really. I barely know the man.”

“But he was there for you in the moment you needed him most,” Elle pointed out. “Unlike your Dad… unlike _Gideon_. Can it be that you’re having abandonment issues?”

“Perhaps a little,” Reid allowed. “But there’s more. I can feel it. I just can’t put my finger on _what_ it is.”

“You’re sure, though, that this has something to do with the LA case, aren’t you?” Elle asked.

Reid nodded. “I _am_ sure. I don’t know why, but I’m _very_ sure about that.”

“Then your answers lie in LA,” Elle said simply. “You should go back and find them.”

“I can’t!” Reid protected automatically. Elle raised a finely shaped eyebrow to that gut reaction.

“Why not?” she asked. “Are you working on any urgent or difficult case at the moment?”

“No, but…” Reid began, but Elle interrupted him.

“When was the last time you had leave?” she asked. “Longer than just half the day off, I mean?”

Reid opened his mouth to give a prompt answer… then he closed it again. The truth was that – aside from the days he’d spent in hospital after the Hankel case – he hadn’t been on leave _at all_ since joining the BAU. No longer than for a day or two to visit his mother.

“You see?” Elle guessed his answer without him actually voicing it. “You’re entitled to a few days off. You’d be entitled to it, even if there were an urgent case to work on – but there isn’t any, is there?”

“No,” Reid answered slowly. “Of all the times, this is the only one I could actually afford to go away for a while. It’s just… I don’t want the others to know… not yet. Not before I’ve figured out the reason for the nightmares.”

Elle shrugged. “Then don’t tell them.”

Reid stared at her in wide-eyed shock. “What?”

“You don’t have to tell the rest of the team what you’re doing in your spare time,” Elle elaborated. “It’s none of their business. Tell them you need a few days alone before you’d burn out – you won’t even be lying, in the state you are. Tell them you’ll be going away and won’t be available for those few days.”

“They’d want to know where I’m going,” Reid protested.

Elle shrugged again. “So what? It doesn’t mean you’d have to _tell_ them. Besides, that would make the whole getting away for a while thing kinda pointless, don’t you think?”

“There always can come a crisis where they’d need my help,” Reid still didn’t like the idea of not telling his team-mates the whole truth, even though the very thought of talking to them about his problems made him nauseous.

Elle nodded. “And that’s exactly _why_ you haven’t had any proper leave since joining the team,” she pointed out. “Current problems notwithstanding, you just can’t go on like this much longer. You’re what? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?”

“Almost twenty-seven,” Reid corrected indignantly.

“Twenty-seven is still awfully young for not having a life,” Elle told him seriously. “You came to the FBI when you were barely more than a child and have been there ever since. You haven’t even _lived_ yet; and you won’t in the future, either, unless you take some time for yourself.”

“But I like my work and my team,” Reid said defensively.

“I’m sure you do,” Elle replied, “but you really can’t go on like this. When I was shot, I understood one profound truth: we only have this one life. It’s up to us what we do with it, because we won’t be given another chance to reclaim missed opportunities, Those nightmares _might_ be the first sign of the burn-out syndrome. I don’t say that they are,” she added hurriedly, seeing Reid’s horrified expression, “but they _could_ be. So, if you think returning to LA and finding some answers might help, I say go for it. Or else you’ll become like Gideon before you hit thirty.”

Reid knew she was right, at least partially. He _was_ overworked and stressed-out, though he still believed that there was more behind his current problems than simply work-related stress. In any case, it touched him deeply that she would care for him so much.

“You’re such a good friend to me,” he murmured.

Elle gave him one of those enigmatic smiles that accentuated her vaguely oriental features, making her look like a statue of some Asian goddess. It made him realise once again how beautiful she was; though she also looked strangely sad, as if she’d be guarding some deep secret he didn’t have the means to know.

“I’m trying my best,” she answered softly. “But since we’re speaking of missed opportunities already…” she leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips.

Reid stiffened… almost panicked for a moment, actually. This was the last thing he’d expect from her – and it was a turn of events he didn’t really feel he could deal with right now.

“Elle… what are you doing?” he asked helplessly.

“Something I always wanted to do,” she admitted with a heartbreakingly sad smile. “Something I should have done a long time ago, but I was afraid to confess my attraction for you, even to myself. Besides, you used to have such a schoolboy-sized crush on JJ; it made me feel like a cradle robber. I didn’t want to get between the two of you, either. I thought JJ would be better for you; it _could_ have worked.”

“Not really,” Reid said with a self-deprecating half-smile. “I’d always be too much of a baby brother for JJ. The mascot of the team. Someone to pat on the head – but not much else.”

“Does it bother you?” Elle asked.

Reid shook his head. “No; at least no longer. As you said, it was just a crush. I’ve outgrown it, eventually. And we’re still friends, which is the thing that really counts.”

Elle tilted her head to the side, mockingly. “Was that a subtle wink that the two of us should remain between the boundaries of friendship, too?” she teased.

She’d perhaps expected him to blush and start babbling as he’d done in his younger years. But he’d come a long way to get over his natural shyness in the years between. He just shrugged and shook his head again.

“No; nothing like that. I just can’t understand what you hope from this.”

“I hope to be able to help you to keep the nightmares at bay, at least for this one night,” Elle answered simply. “I happen to know it on good authority that comfort sex is a great way to achieve that.”

Now Reid _did_ blush after all, and his voice broke in the most embarrassing manner, like that of a teenaged boy. “You… you really don’t need to comfort me, Elle… not _that_ way…”

Elle raised a perfect eyebrow in amusement. “Who said _you_ were the one who needed comfort?”

Reid blushed again, but this was hardly an argument he could have been easily countered – as much as the sudden turn of direction in their friendship surprised him. Perhaps even frightened a little.

“You… you really want to do this?” he asked, still a little uncertainly. “With… with _me_?”

Elle laughed and kissed him again, just as fleetingly as before. “You should give yourself more credit, you know,” then something occurred to her and she frowned. “You’re not still… I mean…”

“Oh, no,” Reid interrupted hastily; the topic embarrassed him beyond measure and the last thing he wanted to hear the question to the end. “I’m not Derek Casanova Morgan, but… well, there _are_ ways, even for skinny little nerds, to gain some… some _experience_.”

“Good,” Elle said. “You’re about to realise how much better it can be with someone who actually _does_ care for you, then.” She paused and her expression softened. “Don’t worry. I just wanna be with you tonight – to take care of you, because you really look like you need to be spoiled a bit. No strings attached. We can decide where to go from here later, when you’ve come back from LA. Decide _if_ we want to take this any further at all.”

“But… but if I’m to go, I need to call Hotch, to ask for leave,” Reid protested, baffled and just a little frightened at the same time. “And I need to… to book a seat on the plane… and a hotel room in LA… and…”

“All this can be done in the morning,” Elle interrupted. “As much as Hotch usually behaves like some kind of robot, even he needs to sleep from time to time. Stop looking for excuses. You can simply say no if you don’t want this; no hurt feelings, still friends, honestly,” she looked at him with an almost frightening intensity. “Do you _want_ to say no?”

Reid swallowed audibly, his throat suddenly terribly dry. She was so brave, so beautiful, so passionate, had always been – and she wanted _him_? Right here, right now? He’d admired her from afar all the time, never counting on a chance to be with her – she’d been distant and proud and strong. Women like her preferred men like Morgan, didn’t they? He’d accepted that fact and went for JJ, who was friendly and kind and seemed to genuinely like him – even if it hadn’t worked out in the end.

But now Elle was here, had come all the way from Brooklyn to help him – and she wanted him. Could he afford to refuse her generous offer, even if it was only for comfort, knowing that it might never happen again? Could any sane man do that?

He swallowed again, almost painfully, and shook his head, his throat way too tight to give any verbal answer. Elle’s face lit up in a radiant smile, and then she kissed him again; and this time, it wasn’t fleeting at all.

It took his breath away.

“Come now,” she said, taking both his hands in her own, “let me make you feel better. Sometimes a little human warmth can do you more good than a million clever words.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Hundreds of kilometres southwards, in Los Angeles, Joaquin Murietta was making the same experience. Once again, he’d asked to stay with his partner after night shift, and once again, she took him it without any questions asked.

Their relationship was a strange one, both from a mortal and a Kindred point of view. Actually, they didn’t _have_ a relationship per se; not in the classic sense of the word. They were partners and friends – the strongest bond possible between two police officers – who sometimes had sex. Plain and simple.

However, sex wasn’t primarily what bound them to each other beyond the demands of duty. It was the fact that Moralez knew exactly who and _what_ Murietta was and accepted him with all that it meant. And when Murietta grew weary of the coldness of unlife in the night, she was always there for him to warm him up… and not only physically.

What they had was a rare thing between Kindred and mortal – almost unheard-of. Sure, many vampires had human volunteers to feed on. Some humans got off on the pleasure the Kindred Kiss, as it was generally called, could provide. But those volunteers were just cattle, as the Sabbat liked to call them. Even though Camarilla vampires had more respect towards their Vessels, they were by no means equals; they were merely a convenient food source that saved them from the necessity of Hunting.

Other Kindred worked with mortals on a daily basis, on a semi-equal footing – at least where work was considered. A chosen few even knew their Kindred partners for what they were. An even smaller number of them were found worthy to get intimate with his or her Kindred partner. But those rare cases usually ended in tragedy, with the human partner killed or Embraced, because the temptation for the vampire was simply too strong… or because the mortal freaked out after a while.

Murietta was well aware of that risk, and for that reason, he never took Moralez up on her offer to feed on her. Not even a little taste here and there. Little liberties could easily have become a custom, and custom could have led to a dangerous co-dependence, causing the downfall of them both. For that, he liked and respected her too much. They were friends, first and foremost; the sex was just an added bonus, really. A most satisfying one.

Nonetheless, in times of emotional crisis – and having had one’s homicidal Sire hunted down and killed like a rabid dog was one of the very few things that could throw even an old and strong vampire off-balance – Murietta instinctively sought the closeness to his partner. The _human warmth_ , which had a much deeper meaning for Kindred than for fellow humans.

Since vampires were, strictly spoken, already dead – well, _undead_ , if one wanted to press on semantics – they always had the temperature of their surroundings, unless recently fed. They didn’t suffer from low temperatures, not the way humans would, but they did find the cold unpleasant, even if it couldn’t kill them. Consequently, basking in the natural warmth of a mortal body was one of the guilty little pleasures many Kindred craved from time to time.

Murietta wasn’t one of those weaklings who would get addicted to such pleasures and thus gave way to their own destruction. But after particularly hard cases, whether at work or in the twilight world of the undead, he found great relief in sleeping in Bianca’s arms, warmed up nicely by their previous activities and enjoying the afterglow. He knew how rare this was for a Kindred and how very fortunate he’d been to find her.

It wouldn’t last forever, obviously. Moralez was mortal and had no intentions whatsoever to become a ghoul and his eternal companion. But she was still young, even in mortal terms, which meant that Murietta would be able to enjoy her warmth and her company for many years yet to come.

Assuming that he managed to keep her safe, that is.

The soft vibrations of his cell phone, placed on the bedside table, woke him from his musings. He’d set the phone at the lowest possible sound, so that it wouldn’t wake Moralez, should he get a call; not that it had seemed likely. Morning shift was the time when his fellow Kindred usually slept, and the police station wouldn’t bother them so soon after getting off-duty, unless there was a real emergency. They’d assume that he was sleeping, too.

A glance at the display showed a phone number he knew he ought to know – he was certain he’d seen it before – but he couldn’t momentarily remember whom It belonged to. With a shrug and a sigh, he picked up the phone and got off the bed, walking over the living room, so that Moralez would be able to sleep on undisturbed.

“Murietta,” he said in a low voice. If the caller was a Kindred, he or she would hear him at this volume anyway.

“Dr. Shiraiwa here,” the distant voice of the Brujah answered. “Detective, I’m afraid we’re having a problem.

“Dr. Reid?” Murietta asked.

It wasn’t such a complicated guess, really. Reid had been their only shared project for a long time.

“Dr. Reid,” the Brujah confirmed. “I’ve just gotten a call from him. He’s coming here.”

“Damn,” Murietta had a hard time to keep his voice low. “When?”

“He’s already sitting on the plane,” the Brujah informed him. “He called me because he apparently needs my help… you know what _that_ means, don’t you?”

Murietta nodded, although the Brujah couldn’t see that, of course. “He’s starting to remember, isn’t he?”

“Not yet, I think,” Dr Shiraiwa replied in concern, “but he will, eventually. He said something about nightmares and needing to find the reason for them. It’s only a matter of time, I’m afraid. What are we going to do now? Have you talked to the Prince?”

Murietta nodded again. “Yeah, fortunately. Last night. We’ve… discussed various possibilities that we can offer Dr. Reid. Ultimately, though, it will be his choice… and I don’t envy him for that.”

“Neither do I,” the Brujah admitted. “All three of the usual choices are a lot more dangerous for him than for the average human. It’s a shame, really.”

“The Prince and I have discussed… alternatives,” Murietta said. “I’ll brief you personally. This is too delicate to discuss on the phone, what with the Nosferatu hacking into every line they want. Call me again once you’ve spoken to him – we’ll meet then and decide our next step together.”

“Will do,” the Brujah promised. “Just be very careful. We’ve barely managed to get the FBI off our trail in the Christopher case; if Dr. Reid is _not_ perceptive to reason, as much as I hate the thought, we won’t have any other choice than to eliminate him.”

With that, he hung up, leaving Murietta alone with his worries.


	12. A Touch of the Wild

**PART 12**

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Murietta was only moderately surprised in the next afternoon to find Reid in his office, waiting for him. He’d _hoped_ they could prevent this conversation from taking place but didn’t really _believe_ they would. The young mortal was simply too perceptive, too intelligent to be fooled in the long run.

“Can I help you, Dr. Reid?” the detective asked.

“Reid nodded. “I hope so. I’m getting the distinct impression that you know exactly what game was being played behind the scenes, and I don’t like being kept in the dark. There was definitely more going on during our shared case than you’d tell me – tell _any_ of us. And all this has something to do with my recent nightmares. The new ones, I mean. I want to know what it is.”

“Are you _really_ sure about that?” Murietta asked seriously. “We’ve been keeping you in the dark about certain aspects of this case for your own protection. There’s a strong possibility that your mind might not be able to deal with the whole truth.”

“I was recently tortured, made addicted to drugs against my will and forced to dig my own grave by a psychopath,” Reid said with a humourless smile. “I had to _kill_ the man to escape. How much worse _can_ it be, this thing you’re hiding from me?”  
  
“That,” Murietta answered grimly, “is a question you should _never_ ask. Things can _always_ be worse than anything you’ve already seen. _Much_ worse. If I tell you the whole truth, you’ll learn things that will change your view of the world forever. Things that will cause you worse nightmares than you’re already having. Things you can never forget but may never speak about to anyone. _Especially_ to your colleagues, or else you’d all be killed. Are you _really_ sure that you want to know?”

His intense warning had clearly frightened the young man. Reid remained silent for quite a while, thinking hard. Murietta could almost see the cogwheels whirling in that formidable mind of his. Finally, he took a deep breath and looked the detective straight in the eye.

“Yeah, I want to know,” he said. “I’m already suffering from nightmares; knowing what causes them might help.”

“Or it might make everything worse,” Murietta pointed out.

Reid shook his head. “You don’t understand,” he said. “Not knowing the reason is the worst thing that could happen to a scientific mind.”

“The worst thing you’re already aware of,” Murietta corrected. “There are horrors you can’t even imagine yet; and I’d spare you that kind of knowledge if I could. The truth might break you.”

“I’m willing to take that risk,” Reid said. “I’ve grown up fearing that I might have inherited schizophrenia from my mother; not knowing what’s happening to my mind _is_ the worst possible thing for me. The fear that I might lose control… that I might turn mad.”

Murietta nodded in understanding. This was something he hadn’t considered – but it made sense.

“Very well,” he said. “It’s your choice. But this is not the right place for _that_ kind of conversation. Let’s meet in the safe house tonight, and we’ll tell you everything.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
_We_ apparently included Moralez and Ramirez, too, as they were waiting for them in the safe house by the time Reid pulled up his rental car in front of the gate. They seemed genuinely happy to see him. Ramirez enveloped him in a bear hug that nearly bruised his ribs. Moralez kissed him on the cheek and offered him a coffee and freshly-cooked dinner. Reid accepted the coffee gladly but refused the meal for starters.

“Later perhaps,” he said politely. “We’ve got more important things to discuss right now. I think you’ve obfuscated long enough.”

“That’s true,” Murietta said. “But telling you the truth isn’t an easy thing. It can be extremely dangerous – for you _and_ for us.”

“Okay, hold on right now,” Reid interrupted. “Why would it be dangerous for _you_? Are you affiliated with criminal organisations or whatnot?”

“No, we aren’t,” Murietta replied calmly. “But we rarely reveal ourselves to outsiders, and your scientific mind could prove a serious hindrance to accept the truth – to accept _us_ – for what we really are.”

“You’re obfuscating again,” Reid pointed out.

“I know,” Murietta sighed. “But you must understand that this isn’t easy. Your generation, the young ones, grew up in a world that denies the existence of the supernatural – in fact, your _parents_ had already grown up in such an environment – and so it’s almost impossible for you to accept anything that’s not based on your so-called scientific facts.”

“Wait a minute,” Reid interrupted again. “What do you mean with _my_ generation? You aren’t that much older than me.”

“Oh, I’m a lot older than you might think,” Murietta said. “I assume you’d googled me before your team would come to LA?”

Reid nodded. “Of course. We like to know whom we’ll be dealing with.”

“Well, there’s your answer then,” the detective said. “I _am_ Joaquin Murietta, Mexican bandit – or freedom fighter, depending on your point of view.”

Reid glared at him angrily. Was the man trying to fool him?

“ _That_ Joaquin Murietta has been dead since the Gold Rush of California,” he said.

“You might call me that,” Murietta replied amiably, “although technically, _undead_ would be the correct term.”

“ _Undead_ as in zombies?” Reid asked, dripping with sarcasm. Murietta shook his head, his eyes deadly serious.

“ _Undead_ as in a species older than mankind,” he corrected. “A species set apart from mankind through death, rebirth and a transformation that can’t be undone. A species that exists in darkness – or in twilight at best. A species that has to shroud its very existence in urban legends, because the fear of mortals would cause our extinction, now that they actually _have_ the means to mass-murder us. We’re the Childer of Caine – the ones your kind calls _los vampiros_.”

“ _Vampires_?!” Reid glared at him in utter disbelief. “Don’t be ridiculous, Detective! What sort of fairy tales do you want me to believe?”

Murietta sighed. “This was exactly the reaction we feared; why we were so reluctant to tell you the truth. We knew you wouldn’t believe.”

“Of course I don’t,” Reid said angrily. “I’ve been plagued by the worst nightmares of my life ever since I’ve gotten involved in this case, and you want to explain them away with cheap horror stories? In case you haven’t realised yet, I’m _not_ an idiot!”

“Nobody thinks you’re one, _muchacho_ ,” Ramirez tried to soothe him, but Reid wasn’t so easily placated.

“Well, it looks suspiciously like you did,” he snapped.

The two men exchanged concerned looks and helpless shrugs.

“I knew he wouldn’t believe us,” Murietta said. “The scientific mind is the most stubborn thing in the world. Very hard to persuade without empiric evidence.”

“Perhaps you should simply _show_ him your evidence,” Moralez suggested. “That would be a lot harder to deny.”

The two men looked at each other doubtfully; they knew all too well, how denial worked. Then Murietta shrugged.

“We could give it a try… can you do it, Jesús? I know you’re not comfortable with your true form.”

“No, I’m not,” Ramirez sighed, “but the _muchacho_ needs to understand. I trust him that he can deal with the truth.”

“I hope you’re right,” Murietta said grimly. “Well, let’s do it then.”

“Watch carefully,” Moralez warned Reid. “Don’t even blink, or you’re gonna miss the moment of the change. It happens quickly and subtly.”

Reid swallowed nervously and watched in wide-eyed anxiety as the two men leaned back in their chairs and seemed to focus… or to relax… or whatever it was they were doing.

The changes were subtle indeed. At first, their features seemed to sharpen gradually, until their faces gained a somewhat skull-like quality. Then their eyes turned to silver and seemed to draw closer, taking on an almond shape. Their hands seemed to shrivel, too, like the clawed feet of some carrion bird, and long, curved talons grew on the end of their fingers.

Reid stared to shake uncontrollably. Memories of the monster that had attacked him – twice! –, safely buried safe of his nightmares, re-emerged without warning and became frighteningly real at once.

“You… you’re just like that thing that attacked me!” he whispered.

“I ought to,” Murietta replied with a sardonic smile that revealed two long, pointed, wickedly sharp canines like those of a wolf. “He was the one who _made_ me a hundred and fifty years ago, after all.”

Reid’s mind adamantly refused to accept the information. “What?”

“Christopher was my Sire, my maker,” Murietta explained, wishing he could change back into human form. The fangs made it hard to manage articulate speech. But Reid _needed_ the shocking visuals in order to accept the truth. “I’m his creation. As you’ve perhaps already heard, we procreate by turning humans into our own kind. When we make a Childe, we have to kill him – or her – first, so that they can be reborn as Kindred.”

“As the kindred of… _what_?” Reid’s mind still steadfastly refused to cooperate. This whole conversation was just too surreal for him.

“Kindred is what we call ourselves, as we’re related to each other by Blood,” Murietta explained. “ _Vampire_ is just an epithet; something mortals gave us, just to have a name for their fears.”

“So… you bite people, kill them and then drink their blood?” Reid knew his questions sounded ridiculous, but asking something – _anything_ – was the first step to getting some sort of hold of the situation.

Murietta shook his head. “We don’t kill the people we feed from… Well, some of us do, just like there are psychopaths and serial killers among mortals, but they’re the exception, not the rule. As a whole, we do not. Eliminating our only food source would be a stupid thing to do – not that we’d need much to begin with. We don’t take more than what you’d be taken by a simple blood test, and even that only once or twice a week. But yes, we do need human blood to survive.”

“But… but people ought to _notice_ , don’t they?” Reid asked, trying very hard to deal with the topic the same way he’d deal with any scientific or criminalistic problem. It helped him not to freak out completely.

“No,” Murietta said. “We have an ability called Dominance; it means we can make people forget what happened.”

“You mean you can hypnotise them afterwards?” Reid asked, a bit calmer now that they were treading familiar territory. Hypnosis was something he knew from experience; and he knew it worked, if done properly. “Was that why the _Maestro_ could manipulate his volunteers so well on stage?”

Murietta nodded. “it’s an ability that comes with being Kindred. Some of us are better at it; some suck at it spectacularly,” he added, grinning at Ramirez. “But we all have it in us to a certain extent.”

“What about the scars?” Reid insisted. “You ought to leave bite marks, even if your victims forget where they’ve come from.”

“No, we don’t,” Murietta decided to let the word _victim_ stand for the time being. Reid couldn’t know what a _Vessel_ was and what they meant to the Kindred. “There’s a substance in our saliva that makes the wounds seal immediately and without scaring. It’s nature’s way to ensure our safety and continued existence.”

He let Reid digest the newest bits of information for a while, then cleared his throat and asked. “Do you think I can change back now? Have you seen enough? It’s really uncomfortable to speak with the fangs in the way of civilized manners.”

Reid nodded absent-mindedly, and the two vampires shifted back to their human disguise. Reid watched the change with morbid fascination. He was curious like a cat by his very nature, and couldn’t help being intrigued by something _this_ extraordinary.

“You weren’t joking then, when you told me that you’re older than you look,” he said to Ramirez, who nodded. “Does this mean that you guys won’t age… or die at all?”

“We do age,” Murietta said,” but very, very slowly. There’s a Methuselah in LA who’s over three thousand years old but still doesn’t look beyond her mid-forties. That’s a rarity, though. Most of us are about my age – between one and three hundred years. And there are lots of neonates – newbies, as your generation would call them – who’ve been made after the Clan Wars, that is in the recent decades. Many of us were killed in that long and bloody conflict. Our numbers were declined. We needed to repopulate.”

“But you won’t die… not unless you’re killed, right?” Reid asked.

“I’m not sure,” Murietta admitted. “Some of our scholars say that, in theory, we _would_ eventually grow tired of unlife and die. It’s just so that nobody had ever heard of that happening. Nobody can tell how long it would take us to die naturally.”

“It’s a moot point anyway,” Ramirez added. “Our violent nature leads to vicious power struggles and bloody fights on a regular basis, so many of us are killed time and again. The vampire hunters among mortals do the rest. That’s why we try to keep a low profile.”

For a while, Reid digested the info dump again. It wasn’t easy to wrap his rational mind around this supernatural stuff, but he could hardly deny the truth of it any longer. Not after his memories had returned. Well, at least he knew _what_ caused his nightmares… even if the explanation was likely to cause even more of them.

“I was wrong with my theory, then,” he finally said. “This _Maestro_ , this Christopher person – he _was_ our killer, wasn’t he?”

Murietta nodded. “Unfortunately, it does happen sometimes that one of us goes mad with the blood lust. Christopher had been _made_ when he was very young. Those tend to become unstable after the first century or two.”

“You knew it was him all the time?” Reid asked accusingly. “Was that why you wanted me here in the safe house?”

Murietta shook his head. “We knew it had to be one of us- the nature of the injuries was telling – but we only realised it was Christopher when he attacked you. Jesús recognised him; after that, we could take proper measures to eliminate him.”

“What sort of measures?” Reid asked tonelessly.

“Time-proven ones,” the detective answered. “We have our ways to police our own. Kindred law is harsh, as it serves our safety. Those who endanger the rest must be removed.”

“You used me like bait,” Reid realised, fighting the urge to get violently sick.

“We didn’t have to,” Murietta said. “Christopher would have come after you, no matter what. Our best chance to stop him was to keep you under tight watch and hope for the best. Trust me: you were safer with us than you’d have been with anyone else.”

“If you say so,” Reid muttered, not the least reassured. “But what about the outcome of the case? Who was the man you presented as the killer really?”

“He _was_ a killer, really,” Murietta replied, “just not _our_ killer. He was a hopeless drug addict who’d killed several people for his next fix already. He was… convenient and expendable.”

“I don’t understand,” Reid frowned. “Why couldn’t you simply admit that this Christopher character was the killer? As far as I know, he hadn’t burst into ash after his death, so you’d have had ample evidence.”

“It’s not that simple,” Murietta said. “It takes a lot – and special weapons – to kill one of us. It doesn’t happen as easily as vampire movies might want you to believe. We had to burn Christopher’s body, at least to a certain extent, to destroy the evidence of the weapons we used on him.”

“Why?”

“Because if there were any remaining traces of a phosphorous gun, it would have drawn the attention of certain… circles in the government, and that would have been fatal for us.”

“You mean the government knows about you?” Reid asked in complete shock.

Murietta shook his head. “Not the government itself, or the President, or the senators, of course. But there are secret organisations that do; even special units within the Army, trained to hunt us. Had your team figured out who and what Christopher truly was, it would have ended in the biggest blood bath for us since the Spanish Inquisition. We might be stronger than humans, but you have the _numbers_. We wouldn’t stand a chance against trained Army troops, armed with flamethrowers. Fire is our biggest enemy.”

“I thought that would be sunlight,” Reid said.

“That, too,” Murietta admitted. “But we can endure sunlight for a limited time, assuming we’ve recently fed. Fire, on the other hand, would destroy us immediately. So we _had_ to present the FBI a scapegoat to drive them off our trail.”

“I understand that,” Reid said thoughtfully, “although I’m not sure I can condone your methods.”

“That’s understandable,” Murietta replied with a shrug. “You see the events from a different point of view. Your disagreement won’t change anything, though.”

“No, I don’t think it would,” Reid sorted his freshly emerged memories for a while; then a thought occurred to him. “When I was first attacked… I was more heavily injured than it seemed afterwards, wasn’t I? I nearly died.”

“That is correct,” Murietta replied. “Were we not with you, you’d have ended the same way as Christopher’s other victims.”

Reid shivered. “In my dreams, I sometimes relive that moment… how I was bleeding out… the numbness of my arms and legs… the terrible cold creeping all over me… How did you manage to save me?”

“In a way only Kindred could have done,” Murietta answered. “We sealed the wounds… the same way we always do… and then Jesús gave you a little from his blood to revitalise you.”

“Gave me his blood…” Reid decided he didn’t want to know _how_ exactly they’d done all these things. Not now… perhaps never.

“Kindred blood is very potent,” Murietta continued. “It burns the intestines of a mortal like fire; most people get really sick from it. But you needed that shock at the moment. You were about to give up the fight for survival.”

“I remember,” Reid said tonelessly. “It hurt so much I _had_ to react somehow. Why _his_ blood, though?”

“Mine would have killed you,” Murietta answered simply. “Kindred bloodlines are different, and so it’s also different how potent our blood is. I’m from an ancient and very powerful bloodline. Jesús is of Week Blood – we hoped you’d be able to deal with it.”

“You _hoped_?” Reid repeated incredulously.

Moralez laid a calming hand upon his forearm. “Believe me, Dr. Reid – it was either that, or letting you die on the spot. In all my years with the police, I’ve never seen a man maimed so badly – well, not one with a rat’s chance to survive, that is.”

“What is your part in this?” Reid asked. “You’re not one of them, are you? Why are you covering for them?”

“I’m not one of them, no,” Moralez admitted, “but my baby brother was… until his untimely end.”

“What happened to him?” Reid asked quietly.

“He was in the Army and still a neonate,” Moralez’ eyes were dark with sorrow, “when he was mistakenly sent to Belize with his unit. There he was caught in a… compromising situation with a fellow soldier.”

“By sex?” Reid asked, knowing how the armed forces reacted to homosexuality. Especially at remote outpost.

“At least they thought so,” Moralez sighed. “In truth, the man knew _what_ Jaime was and offered to feed him. No, really,” she said, seeing his unbelieving look. “Volunteers are more common than you’d think.”

“But how did your brother die?” Reid asked, deciding not to dig too deep into _that_ part of the issue.

“There’s no regular brig in the jungle,” Moralez explained. “Soldiers under disciplinary measures are shut into twig cages and left in the sun. Neonates are particularly vulnerable to sunlight, especially if they haven’t fed before. Jamie burned to ash within two hours.”

“Somehow I can’t imagine the Army admitting the truth about this,” Reid said, trying _not_ to think about her brother burning alive.

“Of course not,” Moralez replied with a bitter smile. “But the Kindred knew; that was when Joaquin revealed his true nature to me. They usually don't do that – but I’m considered part of the family.”

“There are normally three choices when a mortal finds out about us,” Murietta added. “One: we make them forget. With most humans it’s easily done. If the person is a _resistor_ , one of the rare ones who can’t be Dominated, we either offer them to become one of us… or kill them.”

“ _Kill_ them?” Reid repeated nervously. Murietta shrugged.

“We have to defend ourselves – nobody else would protect us. Humans consider us monsters, and perhaps we are, but… I know Jesús had told you a little about his life. What people did to him on the _hacienda_ because they _believed_ he was a vampire, long before he’d actually become one. What, do you think, would a panicking mob do to us if they knew what we are?”

“You do have a point,” Reid admitted reluctantly. “So, what’s gonna happen to me, now that I know about you?”

“Your case is a bit more… complicated,” Murietta said. “Obviously, we don’t wish to kill you. Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation; not with Bianca present, in any case. Unfortunately, the other two choices might not work in your case, either.”

“Why not?” Reid asked. “I mean, I don’t want to become a vampire, obviously, but I’m not immune against hypnosis. I’ve been successfully hypnotised before.”

“Two reasons,” Murietta said. “One: your mind isn’t like that of an average human. Dominance is a much more… invasive process than simple hypnosis. The mind of a genius is very vulnerable – we don’t want you to end up mentally damaged. The same for making you one of us: your mind might not be able to cope with the Change. We don’t want to damage you. You’re too valuable for that.”

“I appreciate the sentiment,” Reid tried to hide his relief and _almost_ succeeded. “What’s the other reason?”

“You’ve been given Jesús’ blood to survive,” Murietta explained. “It only happened once, and it was a tiny amount, but… tasting Kindred blood, even that little bit, leads to changes. You’ll always be able to feel the presence of Kindred if they are close to you, even if we took you the actual memories. Also, you’ll always have a memory of it in you… some kind of inner unrest that might fade given enough time but will never go away completely. We call it a touch of the Wild. In a sense you, too, are part of the family.”

“The cravings,” Reid murmured in sudden understanding. “That’s why the Dilaudid doesn’t work anymore.”

Murietta nodded. “Common drugs can’t do anything against the craving caused by Kindred blood.”

“Did you know it would happen?” Reid asked.

“Of course,” Murietta said, “But what other choice did we have at that moment? You were _dying_. Besides, you were already an addict, so we didn’t make things _that_ much worse.”

“Except getting me addicted to something that’s a hundred times worse than Dilaudid,” Reid pointed out. “I don’t assume there are therapy groups for vampire blood addicts, are there?”

“No,” Moralez replied, “but they aren’t necessary. Go to a drug group, talk about your Dilaudid addiction, and try to stay clean – the point is fighting the _effects_ , not to be particular about the cause. Besides, it’s not very likely that you’d get an easy fix back in Quantico.”

“I’ll ask Dr. Shiraiwa to keep in touch with you,” Murietta added.

“You mean he’s one of you?” Reid was shaken to the bone by that revelation. “Is that why he sent me to talk to you before I’d talk to him? But how…”

Murietta grinned. “The undead have their problems, too. Besides, he’s first and foremost a haematologist; and you must admit that researching blood is a fitting job for a Kindred.”

“So, does this mean you’ll just leave me the memories?” Reid asked. Murietta nodded.

“Unless you _want_ to forget and are willing to take the risk, yeah. But you must swear a solemn oath that you’ll never, ever speak about what you’ve learned today to anyone. Especially not to your colleagues. Organisations like the FBI and the CIA are dangerous for us. You must also realise that you’ll be watched by the Justicars all your life.”

“By _whom_?”

“Justicars are respected and powerful Kindred who are responsible for upholding the law,” Murietta explained. “You are a risk to us all, so they’re gonna watch you to see that you won’t slip. You’ll never get to see them – they’re sneaky and subtle – but they’ll be there, watching. Do you think you can live with that?”

Reid thought about it for quite some time. He understood now what Murietta had meant when he’d said that his life would change forever if he learned the truth. It had been his decision, and he’d chosen to _know_. Now he’d have to live with the consequences.

Finally, he looked up and shrugged.

“I always knew I wasn’t destined to have a normal life,” he said. “let’s give it a try. I’d like to keep my memories, now that I have them again. Besides, I’ve come to really like you, guys. I’d hate to forget you.”

“Very well,” Murietta said, while Ramirez was grinning like a loon. “I hoped you’d make this choice; it’s the safest way for you. And don’t worry; we won’t be bothering you. Not for insider information or anything else. We’re a discreet bunch.”

“But if the craving gets too much, don’t play the hero,” Ramirez added, looking at the young man with almost paternal fondness. “We can help with that – don’t be a stubborn fool. If it gets too much, come and see us.”

“Who knows,” Reid answered after another lengthy thought pause. “Perhaps one day I will.”  
  
~The End~

Soledad Cartwright@ 2-21-09 – 26-10-09


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